


Three Body Problem

by zoemathemata



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscarriage, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:12:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 43,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zoemathemata/pseuds/zoemathemata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Warnings:</b> Please note - Rodney miscarries. I’m sorry for the spoiler, but it’s a very sensitive topic that can trigger and I wanted to be upfront about it. I didn’t want to put it behind a cut just in case someone, for whom this subject is triggering, didn’t see it.<br/><b>Summary:</b> Three Body Problem - in astronomy, the problem of determining the motion of three celestial bodies moving under no influence other than that of their mutual gravitation. No general solution of this problem (or the more general problem involving more than three bodies) is possible. In which Rodney and John are an established couple, DADT doesn't exist, Carson is the head of the medicine, but Woolsey runs Atlantis and an ancient device impregnates Rodney. This is the story of John and Rodney dealing with the pregnancy and then the fall out when Rodney miscarries.</p><p><b>A/N</b>The three-body problem considers three mutually interacting masses M1, M2, and M3. In the restricted three-body problem, M3 is taken to be small enough so that it does not influence the motion of  M1 and M2, which are assumed to be in circular orbits about their center of mass. The orbits of three masses are further assumed to all lie in a common plane.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three Body Problem

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Three Body Problem Artwork](https://archiveofourown.org/works/251217) by [winter_elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_elf/pseuds/winter_elf). 



> Thanks to my betas, neros_violin (bb, you complete me ;)) and D, whose expression when I explained what mpreg is was totally worth it.

  
[   
](http://archiveofourown.org/works/251217)   


  


Art by [](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/winter_elf/profile)[**winter_elf**](http://www.archiveofourown.org/users/winter_elf/)

 _Conception - Technically, week three of the 40 week gestational period. Rodney gets to skip weeks one and two_

“But what does it do?” John asked.

Rodney continued to read the data scrolling by on the screen, not looking up as he talked. “We think it’s got a medical component. Perhaps a DNA-sequencer or maybe some kind of tissue re-generator. Honestly, we’re not sure. There’s chunks of data missing.”

John stood with his hands on his hips watching Zelenka and McKay trade barbs, ideas and equipment. The device was transported back to Atlantis from the planet in pieces and this was the first good look John had gotten at it since its reconstruction.

“It looks like a stasis chamber,” he mused.

“What?” asked Rodney looking up and then glancing over the upright pod. “Oh yes, well that’s what originally led us to believe that it had some kind of medical use so we focused our searches in the database on that. It’s actually very similar to the stasis chamber. It’s how we got it re-assembled.”

“How _I_ got it reassembled,” added Radek, his head poking up from underneath the main console of the machine.

McKay rolled his eyes. “Yes, yes, yes, brilliant deduction, etcetera etcetera. I could get so much more work done without the constant petting and praising you require.”

Radek started muttering under his breath and McKay rolled his eyes again.

“The gate translation works on all languages. I can understand you when you curse at me in Czech.”

“I know,” countered Zelenka. “But it sounds so much better to _my_ ears in Czech.”

“So,” John interrupted. “When do you guys think you will have it figured out?”

Rodney was engrossed in the readings from his pad. “Hmm? Oh, well, it’s nearly ready to be initialized. Zelenka?”

“Yes, yes. One more crystal… there. Ready.”

Rodney looked up at John expectantly. “See if you can initialize it.”

John let his hands hover over the controls for a moment. Sometimes, before he touched ancient tech, he sort of got a feel for what it would do or how it would work. His spidey sense was coming up blank this time, though. He set his hands down on the console and thought _on_.

He snatched his hand back at the sharp prick of pain.

“What?” asked McKay, coming to stand next to him.

“I think it bit me,” John said, staring at the small red drop of blood welling up on his index finger.

“Where?”

They both stared down at the console but could see no visible protrusions.

“Huh,” breathed Rodney. “It looks like it took a sample from you and is analyzing it.”

John sucked on the tip of his finger. “Should we call Beckett?”

Rodney watched the data scroll by on the screen and waved his hand dismissively. “I’ll send him a copy. It’ll have to be translated anyway. His ancient sucks.”

The pod part of the machine started beeping. It reminded John of home alarm systems back on Earth. Rodney frowned and stepped toward it.

“Probably not a great idea, McKay,” John said idly as Rodney waved him off and got inside the pod to get a better look at the circuitry.

Like the stasis pod, a sort of liquid wave moved forward and engulfed Rodney. John shouted Rodney’s name and was matched by Zelenka’s sharp Czech cursing. The scientist fumbled with his own data tablet, dropping it with clumsy fingers and another curse. He snatched it back up and started punching away on it.

“Get him out,” growled John.

“Yes, yes, I’m working on it,” muttered Zelenka. “I do not think there is any immediate danger. Is likely just similar to stasis.”

The alarm stopped blaring and Zelenka and John looked at it, then back at each other.

“That’s good, right?” asked John.

“I hope so. I didn’t stop it.”

A low humming sound filled the room and the sound of the pod powering up increased dramatically. John kept thinking _it can’t possibly get any louder, it can’t possibly get any louder_ but the volume kept increasing.

“Why is it doing that?” he shouted, hands over his ears.

“It’s going to overload,” Zelenka yelled back. “Whatever it does, it doesn’t have enough power and it’s generating more. But the circuitry cannot handle it.”

“Shut it down.”

“Yes, yes, I know!”

It all suddenly stopped. The wave of semi-liquid retreated from the forefront of the pod and McKay tipped slightly forward. John reached out and caught him.

“Are you okay?” John asked, hands tight around Rodney’s shoulders, gripping the flesh hard.

Rodney stared at him for a moment, seemingly dazed, and then vomited so hard he came up on his toes. He stared at where he had just puked and then slowly raised his eyes to meet John’s.

“That is so unsanitary,” he said.

And then promptly passed out.

***

“I canna find anything wrong with you.”

“Are you sure?” asked Rodney plaintively, eyebrows coming together. “Because there was projectile vomiting.”

“I’ll say,” replied John as he came out from Beckett’s office changed into a set of scrubs.

“I did the same routine physical on you that I do when you go offworld. Came back normal.”

“Again, projectile vomiting,” Rodney re-iterated.

“So the machine hasn’t…” John trailed off, making a twirling motion with his hands that could have meant anything from _scrambled his brains_ to _sucked his consciousness into a vortex_.

“He appears perfectly normal.”

“Appears? That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Aye. Now get on with you. I need these beds for the sick people.” Becket smiled and turned away, patting Rodney on the leg absently.

“Appears?” Rodney repeated looking at John like he was to blame. “I’m probably dying as we speak. I should be hooked up to at least three machines to ensure that nothing has altered the state of my brain.”

“Uh-huh,” said John easily as he tossed Rodney his shoes. “You amazingly managed not to get any puke on yourself. Just me. Thanks for that, by the way.”

Rodney slid his legs out of bed and winced when his bare toes touched the cold floor. John rolled his eyes.

“Where are your socks anyway?”

“I forgot to do laundry and I’m all out.” Rodney was stuffing his feet into his boots.

“So you went barefoot in your boots?”

“What was I supposed to do?” He tugged on the laces.

“I don’t know, use an old pair.”

Rodney stood. “Okay firstly, ew, and secondly, ew.”

“So it’s better to go without? That makes no sense.”

“Genius is often misunderstood.”

“Well, ‘genius’ better be thinking of how he’s gonna make up for puking on me and then fainting.”

“I did not…”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got a witness.”

“Belligerent Czech. I wish the cold war was still on. He’d be trapped behind some iron curtain,” Rodney grumbled.

“Seriously, you feel alright?”

“My brains are probably liquifying right now and I’ll likely wake up tomorrow, dead.”

“Well, if you wake up, you can’t be dead. Bright side,” said John with a shrug, trying to keep his lips in a straight line.

Rodney gave him a look. “You know, I felt a little sorry about the puking but now, not so much.”

***

 _Week Four_

Rodney started drifting into consciousness and was immediately aware of the hard presence of John’s cock against him. Spooned up snug behind Rodney, John’s hipbones rested against Rodney, with his cock pressing against the seam of his ass. Rodney face flushed slightly at the feeling and the associated memories and desires they conjured up and wiggled his hips against the hardness. Still sleeping, John’s hips jerked forward automatically and Rodney got a whuff of hot air exhaled against his ear.

Grinning like a kid in a candy store, Rodney carefully pulled away from John and rolled over so he was facing him and then pressed slightly on John’s shoulder. For all that John was a control freak while awake, he was surprisingly compliant asleep. He easily rolled from his side to his back, his erection tenting the blanket slightly. Rodney peeled the blanket back and then rested, kneeling on his heels. John had one hand down by his side and the other flung carelessly across his hairy chest. His boxers were pushed up and out by his erection, an illicit peek exposed where the fabric gaped. Rodney eased John’s boxes down slowly, gently. While John tended to sleep deeper on Atlantis than he did off-world, he could still be easily awakened by sudden sounds or movements and Rodney didn’t want him to wake up just yet. John twitched slightly as the cool air hit his lower belly and hips, another quiet huff escaping from his lips.

Rodney braced a knee on either side of John’s and leaned over John’s dick cautiously, not letting any other part of his body touch John until he darted out his tongue to sweep over the head of John’s cock, quick and smooth. John’s breath hitched slightly and one of the fingers on the hand resting on his chest twitched. Rodney smiled and got to work.

He sucked, lapped, licked and tongued the hot, hard flesh and was rewarded in under two minutes when John’s hands slid into his hair and he started moaning quietly.

“Fuck… best idea,” John murmured quietly, rocking his hips gently up and down.

Rodney hummed in agreement, flicking his eyes up to see John, head back, neck exposed, eyes closed, blissed out expression on his face. John let out a low moan, drawn out and deep and the sound went straight to Rodney’s cock and made it twitch.

He doubled his effort, working John hard, sliding two fingers into his mouth, next to John’s cock and John let out a quick gasp and Rodney felt a short tug on his hair. He pulled his fingers out with a pop and pressed them against John’s hole, circling slightly, teasing. He slipped just the tip of one finger in and pressed down over John’s prostate, rubbing back and forth.

“So close, yeah, fuck, yeah,” John breathed, hands tight in Rodney’s hair. Rodney dropped the hand he had on John’s hip, his signal to let go and John immediately thrust up hard into Rodney’s mouth.

Rodney loved the leashed strength of John’s hips, the tense muscles under his hands, so close to his lips. He worked his finger in John’s hole - pressing, pushing and then on John’s next thrust up he swallowed and without even being able to warn him, John came hot and fast down Rodney’s throat.

Rodney swallowed and licked at John’s cock while John gasped for air and his body slowly sank back down to the mattress. Finally, Rodney pulled off, staring down at John who was like a big, lazy cat in the sun - all loose limbed and noodle-y, satisfied and happy.

Rodney was about to open his mouth to make some smart ass comment about being a genius when a sudden wave of nausea swept over him. He paused, frozen to the spot, and it receded. He breathed out and just as he opened his mouth again, it was back, pushing up from his stomach with a vengeance. The sick, queasy feeling raced up his esophagus and he clapped a hand over his mouth as he jumped off the bed and darted to the bathroom, only making it far enough to puke in the sink.

He heaved and retched for a solid thirty seconds and then felt John’s hand on the back of his neck. John turned the water in the sink on and splashed cold liquid at the base of his skull. Rodney gasped for air and rinsed his mouth out, spitting into the sink. His throat burned, his eyes watered. He rested his head against the cool vanity.

“Right up until the puking, it was the sexiest wake up call ever,” John joked in a gentle tone as he wet a washcloth and put it on the back of Rodney’s neck, which he knew made Rodney feel better.

“Sorry,” Rodney breathed, because really - sucking someone off and then puking had to be the least sexiest thing _ever_.

“You okay?” John asked, squeezing the washcloth on Rodney’s neck.

“Think so,” Rodney replied, exhaling.

John felt his forehead. “Well, you don’t feel like you have a fever but maybe you’re coming down with something? Maybe stop off and see Beckett.”

Rodney nodded, scooping up some water and swishing his mouth out a few more times. He finally stood up and caught John’s eye in the mirror and saw him trying to fight back a grin.

“It’s not funny,” Rodney said sharply, trying not to laugh himself.

John started laughing, trying to keep it relatively quiet and covering his mouth.

“I’m serious!” exclaimed Rodney, stifling his own chuckle. He finally tossed his hands up and stalked out of the bathroom.

“God, and your _face_. I’ve never seen you move so fast without bullets chasing you.”

“Well, imagine how much _not_ funnier it would have been if I threw up on _you_.”

“You mean, threw up on me _again_ since you already did it yesterday.”

“I don’t care what Beckett said, that machine totally scrambled my insides,” Rodney grumbled as he stripped out of his clothes and tossed his bathrobe on.

John shrugged. “He said you were fine. You probably just have a bug or ate something off from the mess.”

“I’m using up all the hot water,” Rodney declared in the doorway of the bathroom.

Twenty minutes later they stood in line with their trays at the mess.

“I’ll just grab some breakfast and then I’ll go see Beckett,” Rodney said.

John rolled his eyes and put a container of apple juice on his tray. “I say if you can eat, you’re fine.”

“I threw up twice in twenty-four hours. I’m not fine,” Rodney said, grabbing a coffee. His face went suddenly green. “Oh my god, what is that _smell_.”

“I don’t smell anything. Except the fake eggs.”

Rodney dry heaved a few times. “I think they’re off. Jesus, can’t you smell that. It’s horrible.”

John sniffed the air. “Smells the same to me as always.”

Rodney put his tray down and walked away from the line, sucking in deep breaths of air once he was away from the smell of reconstituted eggs.

“Hey, maybe you are sick. Why don’t you head on down to the infirmary and I’ll bring you something bland. Like oatmeal? How’s that sound?”

Rodney breathed in and out through his mouth and his face slowly went from green back to its pinky-pale color. “Okay.”

***

“You’re not going to run any tests? I could be _dying_ here. I probably am _dying_ ,” Rodney exclaimed.

Beckett looked up from where he was stitching up a marine, Knowles, who had his leg torn up off-world. “Rodney, I’m kind of busy at the moment.”

“What? This grunt? It’s not like his leg’s going to fall off if he has to wait five minutes for you to check me.”

“You’re all heart, McKay,” Knowles grunted.

“Well, forgive me for looking out for the city. If I go down, you all go down with me. Who will pull your asses out of the fire if I’m dead?”

Beckett sighed. “Look, if it’s a stomach bug, as long as it’s not serious, it can run its course. If it’s food poisoning, well, if you can stand here and bitch at me, then you’ll live.”

“Unbelievable!” Rodney shouted. “You’re not even going to give me some antibiotics?”

“You as much as anyone should know that randomly handing out antibiotics only leads to stronger and more resilient strains of infection. Besides, if it is a stomach virus, medication will have no effect. Stay hydrated. Drink as much water as possible. If it gets worse, you’ll likely have to take some time off work. If it gets very bad, we’ll bring you in here and start an IV.”

“That’s the best you’ve got?”

“Aye. I’m certain you’re fine, Rodney. If it is food poisoning, it’s not from anything strange off-world, it’s just from the mess and if more people start complaining, then we’ll look into it. But right now, you’re the only person on Atlantis who is sick.”

“I could be patient zero and when the epidemic comes, it will be too late. I’ll be dead.”

“I wish,” the marine groaned.

Rodney pointed at him. “I’ll remember that, you grunt, and the next time the entire city is run over by Wraith, I’m suggesting you lead the charge.”

Knowles opened his mouth to shoot a reply back when Beckett pushed him down with one arm and jabbed him not-so-subtly with his finger. “Rodney, you’re fine. Keep drinking liquids and take the day off if you’re sick.”

Rodney crossed his arms over his chest and stood there staring at Beckett. “When the hive ships come and you have to surrender all of Atlantis because you no longer have the comfort of my genius protecting you because I died of an unknown pathogen that would have been tragically treatable if caught early, you’ll remember this day and be sorry.”

“I’ll cry into my pillow every night,” Beckett replied dryly.

Rodney snorted. “You’ll be lucky if you get the chance to shed one tear.”

“Well, then my foolhardiness will be short-lived. Off with ye.” Beckett went back to suturing Knowles’ leg and when he didn’t see Rodney move out of the corner of his eye he chastised him.

“Keep standing there and I’ll find a reason for an internal exam.”

Rodney left as fast as his legs would carry him.

***

 _Week Five_

The bedside alarm went off and John slid quickly out of bed and dressed efficiently in the dark. He stepped outside the door to find Ronon already bouncing on his toes.

“Morning,” Ronon said with a grin.

John managed some kind of a grunt and they started running. As always, it was a few minutes before his blood was pumping enough oxygen to his brain to start having any real thoughts. Ronon wasn’t much of a talker, so it didn’t matter much, but once John got going, they usually ended up chatting. They’d talk about the last mission, the mission coming up, the last movie they watched, why Ronon thought it was ridiculous that Darth Vadar’s helmet was so large, John trying to explain it was made in the seventies and everything from that decade was just large and ugly…

Right now, Ronon was in the middle of retelling what was considered an epic Satedan story, full of double crosses, alliances, battles and love. It reminded John a lot of classical mythology and he found himself lost as Ronon talked. Ronon was an excellent story teller - he never missed a section, had to go back and retell something, or got something out of order. By the time their run was finished and John was back at their quarters, Ronon had left him on a cliffhanger with a quick smile that John would have to run tomorrow to get the rest of the story.

John was grinning as he entered his quarters again, the room still dark. The alarm was blaring the in corner, Rodney lying on the bed seemingly oblivious to it.

John padded over and shook Rodney’s shoulder. “Rodney, time to get up.”

Rodney rolled away from him and buried his face into the pillow.

“You have five more minutes while I’m in the shower and then up and at ‘em.”

He might have gotten a snore in response. It was tough to tell. Rolling his eyes, he shucked his clothes and headed for the shower. He was surprised Rodney wasn’t up; he’d actually gone to bed early last night. Well, early for him. Rodney usually existed on six hours of sleep, going to bed around one and getting up at seven but last night he’d come back from the lab yawning at nine and had flopped into bed at ten.

Maybe he really was fighting something off.

He had gotten sick a few more times but no one else on Atlantis had complained of food poisoning or the stomach flu. Beckett said it was likely just a stubborn low grade stomach bug and since Rodney was managing to keep food and liquid down most of the time it would be better to tough it out, letting his immune system fight it off.

That had gone over with Rodney about as well as a lead balloon.

John stepped out of the shower and started rubbing his hair, letting it stick up all over the place to dry. Rodney was still in bed when he came out, snuffling quietly into the pillow.

“Buddy. Seriously, Zelenka and the other scientists will make all the good breakthroughs and get the glory if you keep sleeping.” He shook Rodney’s shoulder again.

“g’way. M’sleeping.”

“Sleeping late. It’s seven thirty. Don’t you have a staff meeting at eight? You’re not going to have time to go to the mess.”

“M’hmm.”

John sighed and then whip-snapped his towel at Rodney’s ass.

“Ow!”

“You. Late. Get up.” He jerked a thumb toward the bathroom.

Rodney rubbed his rump absently, still lying face down. “What time is it?”

“Seven thirty,” John repeated louder.

“Fuck. I’m late,” Rodney said, pushing himself up. He blearily blinked for a second at the clock and then at John. His eyes were puffy and squinty, pillow case crease mashed into his face.

He looked exhausted.

“You sleep okay?” John asked looking him over.

Rodney rubbed his face and took a deep breath through his nose. “Mmmm. Yeah, I think so. Just really tired today.”

“You feel sick again?”

Rodney titled his head and thought about it for a second. “No. Just tired.”

John eyeballed him. Rodney complained about his health a lot, and most of the time it wasn’t anything.

That didn’t mean it couldn’t be something.

“You’ve been sick and tired for a while now. When did you see Beckett last?”

“Two days ago.”

“When was the last time he actually examined you? Did some tests?”

“Umm,” Rodney thought about it, rubbing his eyes. “Couple weeks ago. After the pod thing.”

“Hm.”

Rodney looked up at him. “You think I’m dying don’t you.”

“I don’t think you’re dying. But I do think something’s off.”

“I _told_ him I was dying,” Rodney complained. “Quack. It’s probably some obscure Pegasus flu and all my limbs will fall off and I’ll waste away in the corner rotting.”

“Except for how no one else is sick. If you’re sick, I should be sick too,” John said with a shrug.

“You probably are but won’t know it until I’m dead,” Rodney said with a wave as he headed into the bathroom. “Not that you’ll have long to mourn me. I’m patient zero which means you’re next. You’ll drop dead right after me, probably right on top of my dead corpse.”

“Well, at least it’ll break my fall,” John called after him, smirking.

He heard the shower turn on and Rodney grumbling something back. John got an early start on his email while Rodney puttered around in the bathroom. He came out minutes later in a swirl of steam, face pink from shaving, rubbing one of his eyes like a tired toddler.

“I’ll go see Beckett after my staff meeting,” he mumbled.

“Lunch in the mess at one?” John asked just about to head out the door.

Rodney nodded with a yawn and waved him off.

***

 _Week Six_

Rodney never had a chance to see Beckett.

A dormant gate protocol was activated accidentally during initial testing of a new virus maintenance program on the server. The gate began randomly dialing planets from the databanks, leaving the wormhole open long enough to transmit dial-back instructions to the receiving gate.

Without allowing the shield to engage.

It was a security and logistics nightmare. The gate refused to be shut down, and the programming system would only allow them to work on the code in between dialing. They had four teams off-world unable to dial in. And they had random worlds dialing into Atlantis with no way to raise the shield if anything decided to come through. To maintain dialing capacity, the gate began to draw power at first from tertiary systems, but as it remained engaged, it began drawing from secondary, then primary systems.

Rodney and Radek were like first year university students; holed up in the gate-room with three laptops a piece, food wrappers, mess hall plates and cutlery spread around them interspersed with charts, pens, a koosh ball and extra cabling.

After the fourth time Rodney threw up on a mess hall plate, someone left him a bucket.

By the third day, no one even commented when he would pause in his work to puke into the bucket and then continue on.

On the fourth day, it was anticlimactic when Rodney finally hit enter and Radek looked up at him.

“Is fixed, yes?” Radek’s hair stuck out like he’d put his finger in a live crystal socket, his eyes red-rimmed, patches of beard darkening his chin.

“Yes,” Rodney said, exhaustion all over his face.

And then he puked one last time for good measure as the gate shut down and stayed quiet.

Rodney grumbled as John led him to the infirmary to get some rest and fluids. He pulled Beckett aside after Rodney was asleep.

“You run some tests?”

“Aye and a few of his numbers are off, but that’s not unexpected given the amount of stress he was under for the last several days.”

“Yeah, but the puking?”

“I agree it’s not normal, but he’s managing to stay hydrated and has even put on a couple pounds so it doesna seem to be affecting his health too much. Although I’m beginning to suspect he may have an ulcer at the very least. I’ll run a few more tests after he’s had some rest.”

John eyeballed Rodney’s sleeping form from across the infirmary. “He’s just been kinda run down lately too.”

“I don’t think he realizes he’s no’ eighteen anymore. He can’t stay up all night and live off power bars and coffee.”

“He’s been pretty good with his hours, actually.”

Beckett seemed surprised by that. “Hmm. Well, I’ll run a few more tests to be on the safe side.”

“Thanks, doc.”

***

 _Week Eight_

Radek has always liked to tinker.

Clock-radios, toasters, beta VCRs, hairdryers, old freezers - it never mattered. If it could be taken apart, he would take it apart.

It was almost even better when things were broken because that meant there were two things to learn - how it worked and how to fix it.

An odd assortment of ancient gadgets lived in a box under his desk. More knick-knacks and do-dads resided in the drawers, and an entire crate in lab 6 belonged to him.

Yes, Rodney loved gadgets too. Taking them apart and reassembling them, making them faster, smarter, better than before. But he didn’t have much time to… fiddle with things once it was decided they were broken. And too often, a newer, shinier gadget would catch McKay’s eye and he would move on, remnants of his last discovery forgotten on the tables of lab 4 like last year’s broken toys. Rodney’s side projects tend to be bigger, _grander_ than figuring out small objects. Rodney wanted to build ZPM factories, stable dimensional shift wormhole generators, faster hyperdrives.

Those were all very impressive, very noble goals, but sometimes, Radek just wanted to _tinker_.

He liked reading the ancient database too. Obviously, when someone was about to die or implode or the Wraith were knocking on their door, the Ancient database was hideous to traverse. It was badly organized in another language with symbols and cryptic references used more often than plain and simple vocabulary. But when he had time and no one’s lungs were about to explode and McKay wasn’t breathing down Radek’s neck while all of Atlantis breathed down _his_ , the Ancient database was intriguing. Interesting. Fascinating.

Although right now, he thought he must be translating or interpreting it completely and hopelessly _wrong_ because there was no way that it could be telling him what it was telling him.

It had been weeks since he and Rodney first tried, and partially succeeded, in activating the large, unknown Ancient pod device. Rodney probably wanted to continue research on it, but after spectacularly throwing up on Colonel Sheppard and then fainting, his attention was continually drawn in different directions and he abandoned it.

Radek had mentally put it in one of his ‘to work on boxes’ and had been half-heartedly searching the ancient database now and again, in his spare time, since.

The entry that he found… it couldn’t be correct. He took a closer look at the schematics and technical workings of the machine as noted in the data stream and frowned.

Even if what he was reading _was_ correct, there’s no way that the device could have possibly worked.

His frown deepened.

Even if the machine was _functional_ and _tried_ to work, it couldn’t have possibly…

Oh.

Well, shit.

Of course, what he actually thought was _hovno_ , but as he kept reading, he said it out loud and thanks to the gate translation device what the science lab heard was “Oh, shit.”

Swearing in the labs at high volumes was quite normal. In fact, the science team prided itself on finding new and inventive ways to curse as loudly and creatively as possible.

But when someone cursed quietly, cursed traditionally, especially when that someone was Radek Zelenka or Rodney McKay, everyone would pause in what they were doing and look up.

Usually because if Zelenka or McKay were cursing quietly, the entire city was probably about to go thermo-nuclear.

So it was a bit of a tense moment as fifteen pairs of eyes rested on Zelenka, trying to decide if an evacuation was about to be called or if they had time to run to their quarters and hide their porn before all of Atlantis went into lockdown at another impending disaster.

Radek quickly closed his laptop with a snap. He needed to talk to Beckett. As he stood he caught sight of the entire lab staring at him.

“You must all be out of work, yes? If there is time for gawking, it must be because everything is done? Excellent, I shall send team to Waste Management and run diagnostics. You will take Marines with you.”

Everyone hurriedly averted their eyes and started randomly typing away on keyboards, a few of them stealing glances at Radek’s back as he rushed out of the lab.

***

Carson sat in his office, trying not to fidget and waited for Rodney and John to arrive.

Zelenka had raced into his office two hours earlier in mad tear, babbling what Carson thought was complete nonsense, shoving a laptop in his face, and waving his hands around wildly.

It took a full five minutes for Carson to understand a word Zelenka was saying.

He took another ten arguing that what Zelenka was saying was madness while the Czech continued to press on, undeterred.

Finally, Zelenka managed to get a stream of technobabble out and Sweet Lord, it almost made _sense_.

Carson had sat down hard in his chair and read over the schematics Zelenka showed him. Then he pulled up every test he’d run on Rodney since the initial run in with the Ancient device. He’d gone over them four times, even going so far as to take the results to Dr. Biro to confirm, with Rodney’s name and gender taken off the chart.

She had smiled wide and happy and had a twinkle in her eye when she handed the chart back to him. “That’s some happy news to share,” she said with a wink. “An Atlantis baby!”

Carson had managed a weak smile and trudged back into his office where Zelenka sat chewing his thumbnail down to the quick. Carson nodded once at the scientist who paled in turn.

“Maniacal Ancients and their devices,” Zelenka muttered.

It probably sounded a lot better in Czech. Carson sat down and put his head in his hands. No matter what reports he’d read from the SGC, he was continually surprised by what happened in the Pegasus galaxy. He radioed for McKay and Sheppard to swing by the infirmary. He looked back up at Zelenka.

“Er, I trust…”

Zelenka stood, leaving his laptop for Beckett. “Am soul of discretion,” he said lowly, crossing his fingers over his heart. “And now, I must make escape before proverbial shit hits the fan.”

Carson exhaled long and slow. “Aye.”

Now, Carson straightened his jacket, folded his hands together and rested them on his desk. At the last moment, he frantically opened his desk drawer, pulled out a bottle of fine scotch, took a long belt (on duty be damned) and hurriedly shoved it back in the drawer with a slam. He was still coughing a bit from the burn, his eyes watering slightly, when Sheppard strolled into his office.

“What’s up, doc?”

Sheppard easily folded himself into one of the chairs, slouching down low. It could almost be mistaken for careless if there weren’t a watchful glint in his eyes. Getting called down to the infirmary in the middle of the day, while not exceptional, was hardly normal procedure and Beckett could tell the Lt. Colonel knew something was up.

Carson gave him a wan smile and was about to offer some meaningless platitudes when Rodney came barreling into the office as well.

“And this had better be important because I was in the middle of training a set of not-entirely incompetent Marines to take over desalinization maintenance and god, if I can get that off the science team’s plate maybe we can actually get some work done around here.” Rodney looked expectantly at Carson and then at John.

“Rodney, can ye close the door behind you and have a seat,” Carson gestured.

“Oh my god, we’re dying. Some airborne pathogen has been released and we’re all infected, aren’t we? Why isn’t Woolsey here if we’re all dying?”

“We’re not dying,” Carson said quickly, and despite the fact that he had more stunning, if not incredulous news, he managed to roll his eyes a bit.

Rodney shut the door as an afterthought and looked at John who shrugged back. Rodney fell into his chair, blue eyes wide and wary.

“Now, I’ve some… well…. Extraordinary might not be an entirely inaccurate word for it. Some extraordinary news.”

Rodney and John turned to look at each other briefly and then back at Carson.

“But… still not dying, right?” asked Rodney, his voice suspicious.

“Right. No one’s dying. Quite the contrary, actually,” Carson said. He fidgeted with his hands. Med school never prepared him for this. “It seems… well… normally this is very happy news.”

“Look, Carson,” John interrupted, looking a little unsettled and queasy. “Whatever it is, just tell us.”

Carson nodded and took another deep breath. “Right. Right. Well, as it turns out, that ancient device Rodney was… ensconced in a wee bit back… well Radek has been researching it and well he’s had some luck and…”

“You said I wasn’t dying!” Rodney accused, pointing his finger angrily at Carson.

“Oh for the love of… You’re not dying, you bloody git,” Carson blurted out, suddenly overwhelmed. “You’re pregnant.”

***

Intellectually, Rodney knew the transport ride and the walk down the corridor took the same amount of time that it always did (with exceptions made for infinitesimal differences) and yet, he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some equation that could account for how time seemed to both slow down and speed up when you were emotionally embroiled.

Of course, it would probably mean having to consult with some psychologist, _crack psychologist_ , for Christ’s sake, so it was likely a question that would never be answered.

The door to their quarters slid shut behind them and they both stood in the middle of the room awkwardly.

“So,” John drawled.

Rodney looked up at him.

“So what?”

“What what?” John said back.

“You said ‘so.’ So what?”

“So, nothing. I got nothing. Jesus.”

“So _I’m_ supposed to start this conversation?” Rodney said incredulously. “Christ. It’s bad enough that you knocked me up -”

“I didn’t knock you up!” exclaimed John. “You’re the one that got in the pod.”

“So it’s my fault?” Rodney retorted. “That is so typical. It’s always the fault of the person who got pregnant, isn’t it? Like you had nothing to do with it.”

“You’re not a woman and I didn’t knock you up!”

“That doesn’t change the fact that I _am_ knocked up.”

“Well, there was no knocking involved,” John stated emphatically and struck his hands out like he was clearing a table. He took a deep breath. “Look, no one’s at fault here -”

“I _knew_ it! You do think it’s my fault.”

“No, I just said no one’s at fault.”

“People always say that when someone _is_ at fault and they are trying to make that someone feel better.” Rodney crossed his arms over his chest.

“That’s not why I’m saying it,” answered John. “Fuck.” He dragged a hand through his hair and then settled his hands on his hips. “I mean, I honestly gotta say, I never planned on having this conversation with anyone, let alone another man, let alone you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Jesus, McKay! It means you’re a man and now you’re -” John made a waving motion with one of his hands.

“But you said specifically ‘let alone you.’”

John took another steadying breath. “Is this a hormone thing?” His eyebrows crept up to his hairline.

“Don’t think that because I’m a scientist I won’t punch you.”

John held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I think we’re both a little… overwhelmed right now.”

“So now you’re giving emotional advice. You. Emotional advice.” Disdain and sarcasm dripped from Rodney’s tone.

“I’m just saying that we’re both -”

“What?”

“Surprised. That’s all. Surprised by your-” again John gestured madly with one hand. “You know.”

“Oh my God, you can’t even say it. By my _pregnancy_.”

“I can say it,” John defended and then screwed his courage to the sticking plate. “You’re pregnant. There. See. Said it.”

Rodney shifted from one foot to the other. “So,” he started. “What should we do about it?”

John eyed Rodney with the same expression he used when eyeing a piece of volatile weaponry. “Um. What do you think we should do about it?”

“Don’t put this on me. I can’t make that kind of decision for both of us,” Rodney said nervously.

“I’m not putting it on you, I just… I mean… It’s your body and you have… rights… and stuff.”

Rodney’s chin came up slightly. “That’s… true.”

“I just… whatever you, I mean, we decide, it kind of effects you more. Right now at least.”

Rodney fidgeted with his pant leg. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“So, what are you thinking?”

“Honestly?” Rodney asked and when John nodded his shoulders kind of sagged with relief. “I keep thinking about that seen in Alien, you know the first one? And they’re all just sitting around the table laughing and then Kane just…” He made a motion with his hands like he was ripping his shirt off and grunted a kind of ‘blergh’ sound. “And it scuttles across the table. And then there was that spoof scene in Spaceballs-”

“Okay, yeah, I got it,” John said quickly.

“Well, what am I supposed to think? Unknown creature. In my body!”

“Yeah, but it’s a baby.”

“I’m not ruling anything out until we get a DNA test,” Rodney said emphatically. “Hello. Crazy Ancients and their wacky machines.”

Rodney had a point there.

“Right. DNA test, first priority,” John agreed.

Rodney nodded.

“Anything else?” John asked.

“You mean after the part where my brain keeps seeing John Hurt’s chest ripping open and a slimy misshapen beast crawl out?” Rodney said in all seriousness and then his face turned thoughtful and serious. “I don’t know anything about babies. Other than they are small and there’s this biological imperative that they have, with breast feeding that they look their mother in the eye while they do it.” At John’s expression he let out an exasperated sound. “What? I read. It’s supposed to make the mother bond with them. Oh crap, I don’t have breasts.”

“I noticed,” John responded dryly.

“No, seriously, I don’t have breasts. I can’t breast feed!”

“Well you don’t have a uterus either but you’re having a baby, so we’ll figure something out.”

Rodney considered that. “I am the smartest person in two galaxies.” He looked away for a moment and then back at John. “What about you?”

“Me?”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “No the _other_ Lieutenant Colonel who knocked me up.”

“Uhhhhh. Like I said, it’s not really a conversation I ever thought I’d have.” John shrugged. “I mean. Babies are small. I hear they smell nice.”

“New baby smell,” said Rodney. “It’s like new car smell. Another thing to set off a biological imperative, I think.”

“New car smell?”

“No, the babies.”

“Oh.” John nodded. “But, uh, other than that…I like Madison.”

“Naturally, she’s a McKay and she’s a genius.”

“Our baby would probably be a genius, too.”

They both stopped cold at that. _Our baby_.

“I need to sit down,” Rodney said and he took a stumbling step over to the sofa. His chest was getting tight and he felt slightly light-headed.

“Breathe, buddy, in through the nose, out through the mouth.”

“Thank you, Mister Myagi,” Rodney snapped as he sat down and put his head to his knees. “I have a baby inside me,” he said suddenly.

John sat beside him and started rubbing circles on Rodney’s back. “Yeah,” he agreed.

“I don’t know anything about being pregnant,” Rodney started babbling. “When Jeannie got pregnant we stopped speaking, well, I stopped speaking to her because honestly, she should have known better and I told her that, I said ‘Jeannie, you should have known better’ and now the fetus is on the other foot and _I_ should have known better. I go out of my way to avoid pregnant women because people always…” he made a flapping motion with his hands, “...cluster around them and pat their bellies and I swear to god if one person tries to touch my belly I will build a disintegrator ray and blast their hand off.”

“I won’t let anyone touch your belly,” John assured soothingly. “Okay?”

“I don’t want to tell anyone,” Rodney blurted. “I mean, Carson and Zelenka know and I guess Carson has to report this kind of thing to Woolsey and Teyla and Ronon can know because they’re team but I don’t want to tell anyone else.”

John shrugged as Rodney looked up at him with wide eyes. “So we won’t tell anyone. It’s no one’s business.”

“I mean, obviously, if we decide to do this we’ll have to tell people because I’ll get fat. Oh my god, I’ll get fat. Not that I really give my weight a lot of thought because hello, genius, but I won’t have a choice. It won’t be my choice!”

“You won’t be fat, you’ll be growing a baby. There’s a difference.”

“It’s just - It feels like - It’s really - ”

“Yeah,” John nodded. “Big.”

“Big.”

***

There were only so many times he could say, “Pregnant!” and John could answer, “Yeah,” with a dumbstruck tone before it got old. He and John sat in silence for ten minutes and all Rodney could think was, _it’s a pregnant pause. A pregnant silence. Pregnant, pregnant, pregnant._.

Although Carson had said it was far, far too early to feel anything moving around in his stomach, and he also knew it on a scientific level, Rodney couldn’t stop himself from putting his hand over his belly and staring at it. He looked up and saw John staring at the same thing - Rodney’s hand on his belly, a strange, kind of screwed up expression on his face and Rodney jumped to his feet and blurted, “I’m going back to the lab!” and hightailed it out of their quarters.

Things were all clicking into place now. The strange smells, the nausea, the fatigue and frankly, he kind of thought his pants didn’t fit the other day and were a skoosh too tight but then he figured that he’d had a salty dinner so maybe he was just retaining water.

But now he realized he was probably getting fat. Did they still call it getting fat when you were pregnant? It wasn’t PC or something like that, he thought, but he didn’t know how else to put it.

The doors to the lab swooshed open and he stopped as he entered in, catching Zelenka’s eye immediately. Zelenka gave him an obvious _look_. Until then, Rodney hadn’t realized there was a human facial expression for, _I’m sorry, my male friend, that you find yourself in the family way. Wacky Ancients, no?_. But there it was written all over Radek’s face. Rodney thinned his lips and gave a look right back. A _I will kill the next Ancient I see and you as well if this gets out_ look.

Radek nodded solemnly, placing one hand over his heart as he did and then looked back at his station. If anyone else saw the exchange, Rodney didn’t notice. He made his way to the small closet he called an office and shut the door behind him, resolved to get some work done.

Two hours and fifteen games of solitaire later, he finally got up the gumption to open up the search engine they had on the servers and start an encrypted browsing session. He knew he could go to Carson if he had questions, and he _would_ but right now, he needed to do a little information gathering on his own. He got as far as _P-r-e-g_ before the hateful auto-fill happily supplied the rest of the word.

A number of hits came up and he started clicking and reading.

Jesus. It was horrifying. The symptoms, the pictures, the sheer information overload. If he’d known that his kind of clutter was just sitting around on the servers… he’d given sever maintenance over to the IT department years ago and frankly, he didn’t have much use for it, having a number of databases on his own laptops that were sufficient for his needs. But this…. Pictures of fetuses (feti? Really, if fungus went to fungi, shouldn’t fetus go to feti?) in all stages of misshapen development. Bellies swollen out, stretch marks. Morning sickness, evening sickness, cravings, hormones, and then he hit the sections on birth.

He realized he had broken out in a cold sweat and was on the verge of hyperventilating. Oh god, it was… it was… oh, okay that was a cute baby in that picture. Fat, chubby arms and perfect puckered smile. Oh, but that one was just ugly and yes, there were such things as ugly babies and he’d never lied to anyone about finding every baby cute and he wasn’t going to start now.

There was a whole other person inside him. That was a sobering and frankly absurd thought. If conception took place in the device, then technically, Rodney had skipped over the weeks of the pregnancy prior to conception, where his body would have been preparing the womb. This whole other person was already eight to twenty millimeters long, according to Carson (and Carson had really wanted to get Rodney back into the Ancient scanner at that point, but as close as he’d been to freaking out over BEING PREGNANT he really didn’t think he could handle a session in the enclosed spaces of the machine).

So, Rodney was eight weeks along. It felt scary and ridiculous to even think that. _I’m eight weeks pregnant._ He turned the phrase over in his head a few times and even mouthed it with his lips. He read a few articles and found while there was some variation in the information, he could be reasonable sure that the… the… baby (he felt his stomach roll over a little at that) had a nose, webbed fingers and a hind brain.

But he really shouldn’t have looked at pictures of fetuses at eight weeks because… yeesh. That was… blergh. It really did look like the thing in Spaceballs at the diner.

He’d been carrying this… this… thing-baby-fetus around for weeks already. Weeks! It was weird to think that everything he’d been doing, he’d had company and he didn’t even know it. Did it think? Did it know?

He didn’t know what to do. He had absolutely no frame of reference for this. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered, and with his formidable brain considering the inconsiderable on a daily basis, that said a lot. He couldn't have a baby. It was ridiculous! First of all _Men Didn’t Have Babies_ and if he needed any other arguments there was always the fact that he was Dr. Rodney McKay, PhD, PhD - a man whose brain kept thousands of people from certain death every day. Every ounce of his time was already spoken for.

Plus, this was Atlantis. Any minute the Wraith could attack or someone could get sucked into a parallel dimension or turned into an inanimate object, or kidnapped or brainwashed or - well, the possibilities were endless.

But then again… He had always considered the fact that he’d like to pass his genes along one day. Frankly, it would be a shame if his stunning intellect was left to languish. Although, he thought the opportunity had passed him by. First by nature of being in Atlantis, then by the fact that he was never in a relationship long enough for it to come up and then because he was in a relationship but it was with another man and so… there went that.

Oh. John.

How could he think about this at all without thinking of him? Having a child wasn’t something they’d ever discussed. Of course, if they’d been on Earth, maybe things would have been different. Adoption or surrogacy. But in Pegasus, options were sorely limited.

He was hit with the thought like a ton of bricks. This wasn’t just his baby. It was _John’s_ baby. It seemed foolish to have that sudden realization because of course it was John’s baby, but there it was.

They weren’t a vocal couple. In fact, he felt stupid even using the word ‘couple’. John wasn’t his boyfriend, his life partner, his special someone. John was… he was just John. And he fit in Rodney’s life and Rodney fit in his. It wasn’t like they professed their feelings, or bought Hallmark cards, or gave each other chocolate. But when he’d been sick, John got a wet facecloth for his neck. Rodney requisitioned tubes of A5-35 for John’s bad knee and made him wear sunscreen if they were going to be outside. John got him Dr. Who on Blue-Ray and swore off orange juice for the rest of his life. Rodney learned the rules of football and tried not to compare it to its Canadian counterpart.

So no, maybe Rodney wasn’t ready to have a baby of his own, maybe he would have never been ready, but it wasn’t _just_ his baby. It was John’s baby.

He put his head down on his desk, groaned and cursed insane Ancients and their improbable machines.

***

When Rodney announced he was going to the labs, John didn’t know if he should follow him as a sign of solidarity or sigh with relief. After their stilted discussion a silence had fallen between them and John found himself staring at Rodney trying to imagine him holding a baby.

He’d seen him play with Madison of course. If by play you mean sit next to her and answer all the questions the inquisitive little girl had on why the sky was blue, where stars live or how come cats don’t talk, (Raleigh scattering, outer space, because they have no lips).

Madison seemed to genuinely like Rodney and think his attitude and gruffness were the funniest things she’d ever seen, dissolving into giggles the higher pitched Rodney’s voice got or the faster his hands flew.

Torren was no stranger to Rodney either, and in fact seemed to like being held by him. Rodney usually managed to keep one hand gesturing wildly as he talked up a storm and Torren seemed to find the commotion soothing.

But when it came down to John trying to picture Rodney holding their baby ( _Jesus, what a mind fuck_ ) he ended up with a vague sort of picture in his head of Rodney cradling a ZPM in soft blanket, making cooing noises at it.

He didn’t think Rodney was bad with kids, nor did he think that about himself. He didn’t think of either one of them with kids at all. Sure, there was the aforementioned Madison and Torren, and also his nieces, of whom John had many pictures and also a framed drawing of some kind of magical pony hanging on his wall, but those kids were… temporary. Borrowed. Kids you gave back at the end of the day after you’d managed to rev them up on sugar, accidentally swear in front of them and let them watch endless hours of TV and video games.

You didn’t have to worry about feeding them or clothing them, bandaging scrapes, soothing nightmares, checking temperatures or helping with homework.

Some of his thoughts must have shown on his face because that was when Rodney had jumped up and declared he was off to the labs.

John let him go.

A baby. With Rodney.

Did he want to do this? Did Rodney?

They’d have to talk it over with Beckett. See what all the medical issues were. Not to mention the team. What would happen to the team? Sure, Teyla still went with them on missions, but she could leave Torren with Kanaan. If they had a baby, shouldn’t either Rodney or John always stay on Atlantis?

Would they even stay in Atlantis? Frankly, he couldn’t imagine raising his kid anywhere else, but there were dangers here that they didn’t have on Earth. Would he be a deserter to the Pegasus galaxy if it meant he could keep his child safe? Could he give up Atlantis for that? Could Rodney?

Or maybe he was jumping the gun here. Maybe Rodney was going to storm back in any minute and proclaim the entire thing ridiculous and absurd. Or Beckett would keep doing research and they’d find out it wasn’t even possible. Becket had straight out admitted he had no idea how it worked, if it would continue to work, or if it was even a good idea. It might end up being too dangerous for Rodney to continue. Becket indicated he was going to keep looking into it, for research purposes, no matter what John and Rodney decided. The technology was too extraordinary not to study.

But Beckett stressed that their primary focus had to be what they wanted to do, and whatever decision they made, as long as it was medically sound, Beckett would support them.

John couldn’t even imagine what Woolsey would have to say about it.

Or Teyla. Or Ronon. Or hell, the rest of Atlantis.

He didn’t even know what _he_ had to say about it.

He meant what he said though, to Rodney, earlier. Rodney was more affected by their decision than he was because it was his body. John wasn’t sure how comfortable he felt weighing in on the choice when he wasn’t the one that had to carry the baby. Sure, in the long run, they were equal partners, but right here, right now, it was resting on Rodney’s shoulders.

Or womb, as the case may be.

John certainly felt invested. How could he not? It was _Rodney_ and, according to the research Zelenka had done, equal parts of both their DNA. He’d feel involved, committed even if there wasn’t any of his DNA as long as Rodney was involved.

Because _they_ were involved. Rodney was so much a part of his life he wasn’t sure they could ever be untwined now.

That didn’t mean there weren't days he was infuriated with the man, of course, or so angry and annoyed he was ready to spit nails. But when push came to shove, as it frequently did in the Pegasus galaxy, he’d put himself between Rodney and harm any day of the week.

He still wasn’t sure how much input that should give him into this decision. All he knew was that if Rodney came to any kind of decision first, John would support him.

He just wasn’t sure exactly what that meant yet.

***

Rodney came back to their quarters long after dinner, well after the graveyard shift started, and he didn’t look at all surprised to find John still awake, plucking aimlessly at his guitar.

“Hey,” said Rodney tiredly, hesitating in the doorway.

“Hey,” John replied easily, putting the guitar aside. “You eat?”

Rodney rolled his eyes and it was so familiar John felt something tug in his chest. “Yes, Colonel Busybody, I ate,” he said as he came into the room proper.

“Bedtime?” asked John, not sure if they were going to discuss the situation or not.

Rodney appeared visibly relieved. “Yes,” he said emphatically. “I’m exhausted.”

“Well… yeah,” John said with a half shrug and they both looked at Rodney’s stomach and then away.

They both kind of kept their eyes averted from one another, although John was desperate to get a look at Rodney’s belly and see if he could tell if there were any changes. He’d just seen it yesterday and the day before that and the day before that… but now he _knew_ something was different, that there was an entire other person in there, he had the compelling urge to study it, memorize it, take stock of it.

He didn’t know how Rodney would feel about that, so he kept his hands to himself for the night and tried not to stare.

With a long, weary sigh, Rodney climbed into bed, John following and they lay there in the darkness - a fine line of space between them that wasn’t there before.

John stared up at the ceiling, lips pursed and wondered if he should reach over? Say something? Or would that be weird? He tapped his fingers against his own chest. Yeah, it was awkward, but they’d gone to bed angry, grief-stricken and injured. They’d slept in hostile territories on foreign planets and still managed to catch some shut-eye, so he wasn’t surprised when he felt the tug of sleep start to pull him down.

“The thing is,” Rodney said suddenly in the dark, and John felt the bed shift as Rodney flipped on his side to face John. “I think I could do this.”

John blinked a few times, waking his brain up and processing Rodney’s words. “Have a baby?”

“No, give up science for music and take Carnegie Hall by storm. Yes I’m talking about having a baby.”

Well. That was it then. Decision made. John felt calm about it and gave a shrug. “Okay.”

“Okay? Just okay? I’ve just said that I might be willing to contravene the regular laws of nature and science and have a baby, have _your_ baby and all you’ve got is okay?”

He turned his head and in the half light, John could barely make out Rodney’s face, just the outline of his features. That didn’t change the fact that he could feel Rodney’s gaze directed at him, waiting expectantly. He decided to go with the truth. “If you think you can do this, then okay.”

“That’s it?”

“Rodney, you spend a lot of time telling me how impossible something is and then you pull a miracle out of your ass. If you tell me straight up you can do something, I believe you.” He felt the hours of tension unknot themselves from his stomach and his shoulders crept down from where they had been hunched up.

He and Rodney were going to have a baby.

“Well. Yes. Of course. I _am_ a genius.” Rodney flopped over onto his back.

“Just as long as you don’t pull this baby out of your ass,” John added dryly.

“I swear to god, I will kill you in your sleep,” Rodney muttered.

“Careful. I’m the father of your baby.”

“Kill. Dead. In your sleep. They’ll never even know it was me.”

“Shhh,” said John drifting back to sleep. “No fighting in front of the baby.” The last thing he felt before slumber dragged him under was the feeling of Rodney’s fingers interlocking with his.

***

Beckett led them into his small office for the privacy and as soon as the door was closed, Rodney spoke.

“We’re going to do this. Provided the DNA test comes back human.”

“Pardon me?”

“Human. The DNA test,” Rodney repeated and then rolled his eyes. “You _were_ going to run a DNA test, weren’t you? I could be carrying a Wraith invasion baby. Like when whats-her-name on SG-1 had an Ori baby.” Rodney’s fingers were snapping quickly.

“Vala,” John offered.

Rodney pointed his finger like a gun at John. “That’s the one. With the leather and the -,” Rodney made a gesture that could only be described as ‘the boob gesture.’

“I hardly think you’re carrying a Wraith baby,” Carson said.

“But you don’t _know_ , so chop chop. DNA test.”

Carson looked to John for some assistance. John shrugged.

“It’s his body. If he needs to be sure it’s not an invasion baby, then test on.”

“Yes, well. It’s very difficult at this stage to take any tests. An amniocentesis generally has to wait until at least 15 weeks. You’re only at 8. And there are always risks.”

“Can’t the Ancient scanner tell you?” asked John.

“I’m sure it could, but I’ve not learned how to calibrate it for that level.”

Rodney frowned. “What if Radek and I worked with you to calibrate it?”

“We could try that. But Rodney, given that you were… impregnated by the machine, I would say it’s very unlikely that you’re carrying anything other than the Colonel’s baby.”

“Let’s never use the phrase ‘impregnated by the machine’ again,” Rodney said emphatically.

Beckett smiled awkwardly.

“And we’re not telling anyone,” Rodney added.

“Except Ronon and Teyla,” John said.

“And Radek already knows,” Rodney said. “And I assume Woolsey has to know because I’m off gate rotation duty.”

He and John discussed it this morning before going to see Beckett and they both agreed that Rodney going off-world was a stupid risk to take. If he’d been on a purely scientific team it would have been different, but they spent far too much time running for their lives or trying to talk their way out of being sold into slavery for it to be safe.

“I had Dr. Biro confirm the results of your tests although she didn’t know it was you at the time. It may be necessary if something comes up and I’m not here, so I’ll be briefing her on your condition and keeping her apprised of your situation.”

Rodney nodded. “Good. Good. Well. Yes. I’m…” he trailed off and looked at John. “That’s all I had to say.”

John snorted and Rodney glared at him.

“Well,” Beckett said, heading off the glaring. “Let’s get you in the scanner for a preliminary scan, shall we?” Beckett stood from his chair and left his office to go back into the main infirmary.

Rodney seemed to fidget slightly, starting forward and then stopping until John grabbed his elbow gently and gave it a quick squeeze. The gesture seemed to galvanize Rodney and he followed Beckett with John trailing behind them.

In front of the scanner, Rodney paused. The machine was very similar to an Earth-based MRI and Rodney would have to lie down and then be slid into the machine. Like it’s Earth counterpart, it was designed to feed the head in first, which really, was a poor choice, but apparently the most sensitive equipment was at the back of the machine, where it would be stable and wouldn’t move. The rest of the machine would move around the patient, gathering data. When a sufficient amount of data points had been collected, a 3-D representation would be generated by the output interface, where Beckett usually waited to interpret the results.

It was a marvel of science and technology and Rodney hated it fiercely. It purported to be perfectly level, a fact he’d checked it himself with both a computer program he wrote for such purpose and by the more crude method of placing a drop of water in the center of the bed and watching for it to roll one way or another. But when he lay on it, he couldn’t help but feel like his head was lower than his feet and something in his brain objected strongly, _very strongly_ to the sensation.

Not to mention it set off his claustrophobia.

“It’ll be quick, Rodney,” Beckett said quietly.

“I know how long it takes,” Rodney argued fiercely and then hopped up on the bed. He hesitated a moment longer and then lay down, his head just entering the inside of the machine.

“Right then,” said Beckett. “Remember to stay as still as possible. The scanner sometimes seems louder inside than you’d expect -”

Irritated at the platitudes, Rodney cut him off. “This isn’t my first time in this thing, just get it started.”

John and Beckett exchanged a look over Rodney lying on the table and with a stifled sigh, Beckett activated the scanner and Rodney felt himself being moved into the machine. He felt his heart rate increase and tried to keep his breathing rate steady, although he felt immediately better when he felt one of John’s hands wrap around his ankle, its comforting weight grounding him. It calmed him slightly to know that if something did go wrong, John would just yank him out. Of course he’d probably dislocate his hip or throw out his back doing it but really, that was a trade off Rodney was willing to make.

The low-grade whirr of the scanner started up and true to what he remembered and Carson’s warning, it was louder than he’d expected. It was ridiculous, really. The Ancients could make a machine that could impregnate a man but couldn't soundproof a simple medical scanner?

It seemed like at least fifteen minutes and when he was rolled out he said as much, but Carson simply pursed his lips and said it had only been five while John tried to hide smirk and gave his ankle a light squeeze. Rodney grumbled as he stood and the three of them made their way to the output console where the images were rendering.

They were all silent as a 3-D picture of Rodney’s torso was generated on the screen until John spoke up.

“Is that it?” he asked, pointing at a large blob off to one side of the screen.

“No, I’m afraid that’s Rodney’s left kidney,” Beckett answered rather flatly, his fingers dancing over the console. “Let me zoom in for ye on the relevant section.” There were a few more minutes of silence and then Beckett stopped. “There,” he said proudly.

Both John and Rodney leaned forward and squinted at the screen as Beckett stood back with a smile on his face.

It was dead silent in the infirmary as they stared at the image. A frown broke out across John’s eyebrows and Rodney narrowed his eyes even more.

“Where?” asked Rodney.

“There,” said Beckett, touching a section of the image.

John and Rodney both tilted their heads to the left.

“Looks like a misshapen cashew,” John finally said.

“Aye,” agreed Beckett with a nod. “At this stage, the embryonic tail is gone -”

“Tail?” exclaimed Rodney, straightening up. “There was a tail?”

“It’s part of the development, Rodney, but it’s gone now. The wee one is just now getting eyelids, and the lungs and brain are developing.”

Rodney looked back at the screen dubiously. John was still squinting at the display. Beckett clasped Rodney’s shoulder. “Would you like me to print a picture for you?”

“Of what?” Rodney asked. “It’s all…” he gestured crazily with his hands. “That could be last night’s dinner for all I can tell.”

“Aye, but it’s not. It’s your baby.”

Rodney eyed the screen warily, eyes flickering over to John and then back to the image. John kept staring intently at the screen as he had been before.

“Still kind of looks a cashew.”

“I’ll give you both a moment,” Beckett said and made a discreet exit.

Rodney and John stood next to each other, arms crossed over their chests, expressions flat.

“I just kind of thought… it’d be more…”

“Momentous,” John said, head bobbing.

“Yeah,” Rodney agreed. “But it’s all…” His hands waved again.

“Blobby.”

“Yeah.” Rodney re-crossed his arms. “I mean, shouldn’t we be… I don’t know. Isn’t this the part where we both look at the screen and say something profound? Like how we never felt complete until this moment, or have some revelation about the miracle of life, the mysteries of the universe and our place in the cosmos?”

John squinted again at the screen.

“I still just see a cashew.”

“Yeah, me too. It’s been a long time since I’ve had cashews. Or any kind of nuts really,” Rodney mused, totally distracted.

“I like honey roasted peanuts too.”

Rodney groaned. “God, remember when you used to get them on planes? Before the whole peanut allergy put the kibosh on that? Those little packets were fantastic. And those little bottles of liquor…” he trailed off thoughtfully. “Not that I can drink right now.”

John nodded his head faintly in agreement, still pondering the mysterious cashew on the screen.

Shaking his head as though to clear it, Rodney leaned forward and with a set of keystrokes saved the data and sent it to his private medical file. He and John left the common area and headed back to Beckett’s office where the doctor was waiting for them.

“Did you get a printout for yourselves?” Beckett asked.

“Er, no. It’s… maybe next time,” Rodney said.

Beckett nodded. “All right. I’d like to set up a series of regular exams for ye and discuss your diet and exercise regimen.”

“Hold up, what?” asked Rodney, cocking his ear toward Beckett.

“Well, you canna continue to eat they way you have been. We need to get as much nutrition into you as possible. And reduce your caffeine. And sodium. More calcium and some folate. And if you’re going to tell Teyla, I’d like to speak to her about starting you on some Athosian yoga.”

“For what? And you better not saying breathing exercises because I’m not having a natural birth! You’re going to knock me out and when I wake up, poof! Baby!” He cradled his hands out in front of him like he was holding a child.

Beckett grinned. “No, Rodney, it’s prenatal. Your hips aren’t meant to carry this load and we need to get your body as limber as possible.”

“Wait, you said reduce caffeine,” Rodney interrupted, his brain just getting to that part now.

“Aye.”

John took one look at Rodney’s expression and blurted, “Oh, is that my radio?” He held a hand to his hear and then pointed. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. Got an ammunitions inventory to get to.”

“John…” Rodney started.

“And you can tell me all about your yoga schedule and new tea regimen and Becket will give me a list of what you can and can’t eat,” John said as he stood up and started backing out of the room.

“John!” Rodney called after him, staring at his retreating back.

“I’ll tell Zelenka to stop by,” John called over his shoulder and then he was gone.

***

“Pregnant,” Ronon said.

“Yep,” John nodded.

“With your baby,” Teyla said.

“Yep.”

There was silence all around for thirty seconds while Ronon and Teyla digested the news.

“Uh, Beckett was hoping you’d start doing some Athosian yoga with Rodney to work on his hips so… when the baby…”

Teyla stared at John with her ‘Yes, I am listening and shall give you time to speak, you sad moron,’ face.

“It might help Rodney out,” John finished lamely.

Teyla nodded serenely. “I shall speak to both of them.”

“Is it human?” Ronon asked, eyebrow raised.

“Of course it’s human. I mean, Beckett’s gonna run some tests but, you know. I told you, Ancient console, leaning and then pregnant Rodney.”

“The Ancients were fucked up, man,” said Ronon.

There wasn’t much to add to that but nod and the three of them shared a strange commiseration over the statement until John finally broke the silence. “We decided we’re only telling you guys and then command staff as needed. Rodney doesn’t want people touching his belly.”

“Fair enough,” said Ronon.

“And you are both… agreeable to this?” asked Teyla.

John shrugged. “Well, you know. Uh. Sure. I mean, we talked about it and it’s not like it’s something we planned. Or even thought about. But. I think so.”

“You’ll be a good dad,” said Ronon and slapped John on the back. Hard.

John stumbled a bit. “Thanks, big guy.”

“I believe you and Rodney will make very fine parents,” Teyla agreed. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

***

 _Week Nine_

Rodney stormed into John’s office and and before John had even finished sitting up straighter, Rodney was talking.

“I don’t want to keep calling it ‘it,’” Rodney said decisively.

“It?”

“Right. I don't want to call it that.”

“What?”

“The baby.”

“Uh, okay.” John shrugged. “We’ll call it whatever you want. We’ll call it the baby.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “That’s even worse. It will be like that show. The baby, the baby, the baby. The baby this, the baby that. Besides it’s not even really a baby until it’s born. Technically it’s not even a fetus till week eleven.”

John scrunched up his nose. “I’m not calling it the fetus. That’s just… no.”

“I agree,” exclaimed Rodney. “And after careful consideration, I think we should just go ahead and pick a name.”

“How? We don’t know what it is yet. That’s why we call it ‘it.’”

“Yes, I’ve thought of that too and I’ve decided we should pick a genderless name. A unisex name.”

“Like Meredith?” John asked mischievously.

Rodney tossed a datapad down in front of John and glared at him. “Don’t start with me. I’m very fragile right now. My hormones are all over the place.”

John snorted. “Yeah. You’re about as fragile as a brick wall. I heard you made three scientists cry this week. That’s above average for you.”

“If they did their jobs properly, they wouldn’t have anything to fear. Now,” Rodney replied, “I’ve compiled a list of acceptable candidates. I thought we could chose from it.”

“What about my list? If I’m picking from your list, my list doesn’t even get considered.”

“Well, bring out your list.”

John shifted.

“You don’t even have a list,” said Rodney hotly. “I knew it. So what does it matter then? Pick from mine.”

“It’s just that yours are gonna be all…” John waved his hand madly. “Rodney choices. I’m not naming my kid Quasar or something.”

“Quasar is not even a name and it’s not on my list.”

“Well, what if something I like isn’t on your list?”

“Then I have already vetoed it and it doesn’t matter anyway. Look, I’m giving you a veto here. If you don’t want it…” Rodney said, reaching out to take the pad back.

John curled his body around it defensively. “Oh, we’re definitely not leaving naming up to you, Meredith.”

“This from the guy with the Johnny Cash poster. ‘A Boy Named Sue?’”

“I wouldn’t pick Sue. I know how that song turns out,” John shot back and started scrolling through the names. _Adrian, Alexis, Bailey_ . “Blair? Really? Blair?”

“Blair is a perfectly fine name. It’s Scottish, so it would go well with McKay.”

“ _Sheppard_ -McKay,” John intoned.

“Why should your name go first? In fact, I don’t see why you get to put your name in there at all.”

“That’s half my genes!” John gestured at Rodney’s gut.

“Yes, but all you did was lean against a console. I’m providing shelter, food and nurturing.” He said the last as he placed a hand on his belly.

“Okay, shelter and food I’ll give you but nurturing?”

“What’s wrong with my nurturing skills?”

“Well for one, you were gonna name the kid Blair.”

“If you don’t like it, then cross it off the list!”

“Oh it’s off the list.” John looked back at the pad. “So’s Cameron, ‘cause we know one. Casey’s not bad.”

“Actually, take Casey off. It makes me think of Finnegan.”

John frowned. “Who the hell is Finnegan?”

“Casey and Finnegan? The tickletrunk? Mr. Dressup?” At John’s blank look Rodney’s face went horrific. “Oh my God, that’s _right_! You’re American! You never had Mr. Dressup! Friendly Giant?”

John shook his head and stared at Rodney who continued to freak out.

“It’s an absolute disaster. I’ll have to be responsible for all early childhood programming.”

“Back to the list,” John said loudly, trying to head off another meltdown. “Drew’s okay. I like Drew.”

Rodney’s eyebrows’ came together. “No, I’ve changed my mind. Drew’s a no.”

“Jesus, this is _your_ list! If you didn’t like it, why did you put it on?”

“I thought I liked it but now I don’t.”

John rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’m vetoing Francis.”

“What’s wrong with Francis?” asked Rodney.

“You didn’t have to give a reason. Francis is out.” John looked back at the list. “Jamie is nice.”

“I thought so too. Like the bionic woman. Or the guy from the new Battlestar.”

“That’d be cool. Kelly…. No. I don't like Kelly. Morgan reminds me of Morgan Le Fey, so no. Payton’s pretty girly if you ask me. Regan makes me think of Ronald. Robin makes me think of Batman. Ryan’s a boys name. I like Sydney. Not too sold on Taylor.” He looked back up at Rodney. “I like Jamie.”

Rodney’s lips curled up in a half smile. “Me too.”

***

Rodney was going over the latest reports from uranography when he felt the back of his neck twitch.

He looked up to find Zelenka looming over him.

“What?” he snapped.

Radek looked around, like something out of a bad 80s spy flick and then said, “Things are good?”

Rodney frowned. “What? This?” he asked gesturing toward the report. “Well another two percent of Pegasus is mapped now, but nothing of interest was found. A couple of neutron stars, one of which underwent a starquake, which by the way, we’ve got to look into the shield capacity against such an onslaught. I know it’s about as likely as getting struck by lightning but that’s the last thing we need. But,” Rodney continued, “if we could find a way to predict them better and harness that energy, we’d certainly cut down on our reliance on naquadah generators.”

Radek coughed and looked around again. “Er, no, I meant with your…” he pointed quickly at Rodney’s stomach. “Your secret passenger.”

For a moment, Rodney didn’t know what he was talking about and it hit him. He reflexively placed a hand on his lower abdomen. “Oh, yes. My… yes. Things are good.”

Zelenka smiled. “Good. Good. I noted you were working less hours and I saw today you eating actual nutrition.” Zelenka looked pointedly down at Rodney’s desk where a half-eaten tray of fruit and vegetables was sitting.

Rodney made a face. “Yes. I’d kill for a cup of coffee right about now.”

“Surely you could have one? My cousin is a nurse, and she had one everyday during her…” again Zelenka looked around and then whispered, “pregnancy.”

Rodney slouched. “Carson said no. I’m a high risk pregnancy so I’m on a no-caffeine diet,” he said dejectedly.

Zelenka patted him on the shoulder in consolation.

This time, it was Rodney who glanced around like they were stuck on the set of a Bond film. “And… uh… well… We picked a name. Jamie.”

“Is for boy or girl?”

“Both.”

Radek’s eyes widened. “You are only having one though, yes?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yes! Jesus, just one. But I wanted to pick a name and the scanner isn’t sensitive enough to discern gender at this point, which speaking of, I’ll need you to assist me tomorrow morning in the infirmary to see if we can calibrate it at a higher sensitivity.”

Radek was already nodding and entering in the the appointment into his tablet. “Yes, yes. We will have to be careful not to increase any output radiation or electromagnetism from the device.”

“Exactly, but I thought if we worked on the speed of the scanner, perhaps slowing it down, or maybe the number of renderings the data has to go through -”

“Might refine the data,” finished Radek, adding their conversation to his notes. “Yes. Should work.” He looked up and paused. “Is very nice name. I’m happy for you and the Colonel.”

Rodney felt a blush creep up his neck and into his face and blamed it on hormones. “I… well… thank you.”

Radek nodded. “You’re welcome.” He reached out and snagged a pepper-like vegetable from Rodney’s tray and Rodney squawked in indignation.

“Stealing from me is stealing from the baby!” he hissed, sotto voice.

Radek smiled as he walked away. “But these are very crispy when they are in season.”

***

 _Week Ten_

As soon as the Ancient machine was calibrated, Rodney was scanned again and huffed as he and John waited for Carson to interpret the results. Rodney tapped his feet while Carson reviewed the data.

“Today?” he asked.

Carson shot him a look. “I’m verifying the results right now, Rodney.”

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Boy parts, girl parts. They teach this at voodoo school don't’ they?”

“Your baby doesn’t have any parts at the moment. I’ve got to do a DNA analysis with the scanner to be sure.”

After a few more minutes of Carson tapping away at the screen, he nodded to himself and looked up.

“Tell me!” Rodney demanded and when Carson opened his mouth Rodney held his hands up stopping him. “No! Don’t!”

Carson closed his mouth.

“Okay, yes, tell me,” Rodney said and Carson took a step forward and Rodney stopped him again. “No! Wait!”

Carson looked at John who could only shrug. “It’s best just to let him tire himself out.”

“It’s just, once we _know_ we can’t not know anymore. And not knowing is… well… it’s sort of… well it sucks frankly because I like to know things but also, it’s like a Christmas present under the tree and if you were careful you could get all the tape off and peek and then wrap it all up again but once you knew you _knew_. And the best part was that millisecond right before you knew.”

“So now ye don’t wanna know,” said Carson looking from John to Rodney.

“No! I do. I just…” Rodney looked at John. “You wanna know, don’t you?”

John shrugged again. “Sure. Knowing’s good. Then we can plan. You know… pink. Blue.”

“Oh those colors are so stereotypical. Do you know blue was chosen as a boys color because it was thought to ward off evil spirits and pink was only chosen as a compliment to blue?”

“Why do you know things like that?”

“Genius,” Rodney said, tapping his fingers on his head.

“So,” began Carson, “Is that a yes?”

“I… well…” Rodney stared at John.

“I’m fine either way, buddy. Your call.”

Rodney clenched one of his fists and looked like he was thinking really hard. “Okay, yes,” he said finally and Carson took in a breath. “Wait! I don’t know what I’m hoping for. What are we hoping for?” he said to John.

“Uh, I was pretty happy once the test came back human.”

“Me too! I just don’t know if I want a boy or a girl.”

“Does it matter?”

Rodney opened his mouth to say yes and then closed it suddenly. “No. I guess it doesn’t. Okay. I’m ready.”

Carson stood there immobile not saying a word.

“Well? What are you waiting for?”

Carson exhaled in exasperation. “It’s a girl and I’ll be putting money toward her therapy starting today.”

“A girl,” John repeated and kind of smiled. He really liked the idea of a girl. Of course, he probably would have liked the idea of a boy just as well. He really didn’t care one way or the other. He bounced a little on his toes and elbowed Rodney. “Jamie’s a girl.”

“Jamie?” asked Carson.

“Well I wasn’t going to keep calling our child, our daughter ‘it’,” Rodney said and then paused. “Oh my god, we have a daughter.” He paled a little.

“Her name’s Jamie,” John said to Carson, a dumbstruck look and goofy grin on his face. “We named her.”

Carson smiled back. “Shall I make a note of it on the chart then?”

“Yeah,” enthused John, clearly excited about the whole thing. Rodney started fanning himself a little wildly.

Carson wrote her name down carefully and left John and Rodney in the small office to have a moment by themselves.

John elbowed Rodney again. “We’re having a girl.”

“I know!” Rodney exclaimed and John finally realized he looked a little panicked.

“Hey, I thought you said it didn’t matter?” He took Rodney’s elbow and led him to a chair.

“It didn’t, it doesn’t, I… oh God, I don’t know anything about women!” Rodney exclaimed.

John smiled easily as Rodney sat down in the chair. “Well, lucky for you she won’t be a woman, she’ll be a baby.”

“It’s just… I’ll probably make her cry all the time and when girls cry it makes you feel…” he gestured madly around his chest. “All tight and… like you kicked a puppy or something.”

“Buddy, as I said, she’s gonna be a baby. From what I hear? They cry. A lot.”

“No, I mean when she’s older! She’ll cry and she’ll yell at me and she’ll have boyfriends and we’ll have to scare them all into not touching her and there’ll be… bras and girly things and… and… When Jeannie was a teenager, oh my god, it was awful. Do you know she calculated out how _exactly_ to slam her bedroom door to get the maximum amount of sound? And slamming it once wasn’t enough. She’d open it and slam it and open it and slam it. My dad had to take it off the hinges and _that_ just led to straight out warfare. And maybe you haven’t noticed but I’m not exactly good with women.”

“Rodney,” John drawled and hunched down in front of him. “She’s not going to be some woman off the street. She’s our kid.”

Rodney eyeballed him carefully and finally said, “What if she doesn’t like me?”

He looked so worried, his eyes bright and wide and maybe a little teary. He would never say it out loud for fear that Rodney would turn his shower water frigid or lock him out of the Puddlejumpers, but Rodney’s hormones really were all over the place. Yesterday, John came home to find Rodney crying at the Death Star exploding at the end of Star Wars. He’d bemoaned the loss of technology and all the unknown, nameless Storm Troopers who ‘were just doing their jobs, goddammit. It’s not their fault it’s an _evil_ Empire.’

Rodney then became totally distracted by the idea of building a Death Star, sure it would be the turning point in the battle with the Wraith. That or the planet eater thing from the original Star Trek, the one, he said, ‘that looked like a really big joint.’

He’d eventually been distracted from his new blueprints by dinner.

John tried not to laugh at Rodney now, his nose running and long, suffering sighs emanating from him.

“She’ll love you. Because you’re her dad,” he said assuredly, squeezing Rodney’s fingers a bit.

Rodney sniffed a little. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Rodney sniffed again and then seemed to realize what he was doing. He rolled his eyes at himself. “Fucking hormones,” he groused and the pointed at John. “But if anyone else suggests it, I’ll kill them.”

***  
 _Week Eleven_

John entered their quarters and stopped at what he saw.

Rodney was stretched out on the couch reading a book with his large, super sized headphones laying on his stomach.

Blaring …. Classical music.

“What are you doing?” John asked, his eyebrows drawn together.

Rodney didn’t even look up. “Reading and getting through more than one page. Fascinating concept for one who’s still stuck on page 59 of the same book he’s been reading for years.”

“I don’t have a lot of spare time,” John protested.

Rodney turned the page of his sci-fi novel. “Face it, you’re never going to finish it. It’s boring.”

“It’s a classic.”

“Bo-ring,” Rodney sing-songed.

“Besides,” said John, picking up Rodney’s feet and dropping himself onto the sofa, putting Rodney’s legs back on his lap. “I meant -” he gestured to the headphones.

“Oh,” Rodney put his book down. “That’s for Jamie. Classical music is very intellectually stimulating.”

“McKay, she doesn’t have ears yet.”

“Very little is known about early development. Who knows what is going on in there? Maybe she doesn’t need ears to hear. Maybe the vibrations of the music will imprint on her brain.”

“And turn her into a genius?” John asked with a grin.

Rodney leveled him with a look. “She will already be a genius of course. But studies have shown that classical music can increase higher brain function.”

John leaned over, half curled over Rodney’s body, his body twisting in a strange and lithe manner that Rodney could never hope to duplicate. He moved the headphones to the side and put his ear on Rodney’s belly.

“What do you think she hears in there all day long?” he asked.

Rodney picked up his book again and started reading. “Hopefully not the idiotic things I hear in my lab. I swear to god if I find out that being surrounded by those idiots has in any way impeded her intelligence I will find away to suck IQ points out of their heads and give them to Jamie.”

John heard gurgling and rumbling sounds from Rodney’s stomach. “It sounds like all she gets to hear is your digestion. Your stomach is _loud_ , McKay.”

“I had pizza for lunch and some pseudo-yogurt and veggies for a snack in the afternoon. That’s a lot for it to work on,” Rodney replied as though it were obvious.

The music was something with a rather ominous sounding organ, but listening to it and the organic sounds of Rodney’s belly was soothing.

He must have dozed off because the next thing he was aware of was the feeling of Rodney’s fingers absently carding through his hair and the music was no longer playing.

“What time is it?” he asked around a yawn, pushing himself up and wincing at the crick in his back.

“Seven. You were out for about an hour.”

Rodney’s tummy grumbled loudly.

“Dinner?” John asked with a wry grin.

“I’m eating for two,” Rodney said sharply at John’s expression.

“Yeah, but one of you’s only as big as grape.”

Rodney shot John a quizzical look and John looked slightly bashful.

“I read that in a book. Carson gave it to me.”

Rodney smiled. “You’re reading up,” he said proudly.

John rolled his eyes. “Yes, Rodney, I’m reading up.”

***  
 _Week Twelve_

“Breathe through your muscles and relax.”

“Oh that is the most -- you know you can’t breathe through muscles. You breathe through _lungs_ and by a process known as _diffusion_ the oxygen is exchanged in the blood stream for carbon dioxide and -”

“I am well aware of how the lungs function, Rodney,” Teyla said, not even opening her eyes.

“Yes. Well,” Rodney huffed. “Then you should know I can’t breathe through my muscles.”

They were sitting cross-legged on the floor of one smaller work out rooms, mats spread out beneath them, and a few candles lit.

“It is an expression to keep you focused on your body and the areas we are working on.”

Rodney let out a sigh. “I’m _trying_. When does the relaxation start?”

Teyla opened her eyes and regarded him with a fond, if not pointed, look.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “ _Fine_. I’m breathing through my hips now,” he groused.

“It’s important that we start to work on opening your hips or you’ll find carrying a child quite uncomfortable.”

“I think it’s going to pretty uncomfortable no matter how much breathing through my hips I do.”

Teyla made a soft ‘mmhmm’ sound and continued her steady breaths. Rodney tried to mimic her deep inhales and smooth exhales. He closed his eyes and focused on his hips as she had instructed, picturing them lengthening and loosening up.

After a few breaths, he cracked one eye open, squinting.

“Um, Teyla?”

“Yes, Rodney,” she said, her voice laced with infinite patience as she continued to breathe with her eyes closed.

“Er, when you… I mean, obviously you at some point thought… or maybe you didn’t. Just because you’re a woman doesn’t mean you actually always wanted to have children, but maybe that’s just a Milky Way Galaxy thing because it’s not like there’s a lot of career opportunities for women in Pegasus and by no means is that meant to be a sexist statement, I’m just saying, _Wraith_ and so not a lot of time to work on other things other than _survival_ -”

“Breathe, Rodney.”

“Yes, yes, through the hips, I just… did you want kids?”

Teyla opened her eyes and Rodney gave up the pretense of even having one eye shut and slouched down in his posture.

“I had always hoped to someday have a family, yes.”

“Did you know you were going to be a good mom? Because you are. A good mom.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you. I try.”

“Does it…. Is it… how do you know what to do?”

“To be a parent, you mean.”

“Yes,” Rodney said, shoulders sagging as if the question had been holding him up for hours.

Teyla was thoughtful for a while, her gaze going unfocused before she spoke. “It is not easy, nor is it always clear what needs to be done. I have struggled in finding a balance between my work and my home life. Though they have not said it out loud, I believe some parents think I should no longer travel as much as I do, that my doing so is taking too great a risk or that I am spending too much time away from Torren. It was the same for my father as well. He travelled much when I was a child and I believe that after the death of my mother, many felt that he should delegate more of work and stay closer to home.”

“But you still go,” Rodney said when she was silent a little longer.

“Yes. I believe that I have a duty to myself, to my people, to my family, to Torren. I must do whatever I can to defeat the Wraith, to build trading alliances, to assure others that there is hope. As a child, I did miss having my father near but as an adult, I can see the value of what he did, of the life he led and the work he chose. It left a legacy to my people that we are still benefiting from. I am proud of what he accomplished and I hope that someday, Torren will benefit from my work as I have benefitted from my father’s. And I believe I am a better parent to Torren because I am following the path I feel I must.

“Kannan is… fulfilled staying with Torren. That is his path, and I am grateful that we are both able to pursue what we think is right.”

Rodney fidgeted, rocking back and forth on his sit bones. “What if… I never… Obviously I never planned on having a child this way,” he said finally gesturing toward his belly. “And while I did want to pass along my genes when I was younger, as I got older, that thought kind of… and then I was with John and so… but now it’s here and I’ve seen Jeannie with Madison and you with Torren and you’re both so _patient_ and you _know_ things and when they cry they look for you and I just… I know I’m smart. I’m a genius but what if I can’t… what if it’s not something I can figure out?”

Teyla leaned forward, her body folding effortlessly as she placed one of her hands on Rodney’s knee. “Rodney, I have faith that you will do wonderfully.”

Rodney made a kind of grumbling sound in the back of his throat, flushing a little bit as he did. Teyla patted his knee and leaned back, closing her eyes.

Rodney managed a full minute of silence before he spoke again.

“Teyla?”

“Yes, Rodney,” Teyla answered, opening her eyes, still calm and serene.

“Did things smell different when you were… you know…”

Teyla smiled at the expression on Rodney’s face. His eyes were closed, but his eyebrows where scrunched up along with his nose.

“Yes. I must confess, I had a particular fondness for the ice particles that formed in the kitchen’s freezers.”

Rodney’s eyes snapped open. “Oh God, it smells _so good_. They had a power fluctuation in the mess last week and I was there with Radek recalibrating the grid and I kept walking by the freezer just to smell it. Carson says there’s no biological reason for me to need to eat ice off the inside of the freezer, but-” Rodney waved his hand around. “Even if I could just get some to sniff.”

“The ice cream scoops work very well and if you go between eleven and midnight, you have less chance of being spotted.”

“Really?”

Teyla nodded knowingly. “But stay away from the Manterran eggs.” Her nose wrinkled in distaste. “They were quite foul.”

“Was _that_ what I was smelling this morning?”

She nodded. “Even now, I try to avoid the mess when they are being served.” She closed her eyes again and took in a deep breath. Rodney copied her, inhaling through his nose and trying to exhale the same fluid way she did.

“Teyla?” he began again.

“Yes, Rodney,” Teyla repeated, for what felt like the umpteenth time.

“Thanks.”

***

Rodney was already up on the examination bed by the time John made it to the infirmary for their scheduled ultrasound appointment.

Beckett had set them up in one of the private rooms since Rodney declared he still wasn’t ready to tell people.

John couldn’t say he blamed him. He could barely imagine the looks that Rodney would get once word of his pregnancy got out.

“Och, good, you’re here,” rumbled Carson in his soft brogue. “Now, I’ve just reviewed your last set of bloodwork and everything looks good. All your numbers are within an acceptable range.”

“They’d better be,” said Rodney. “I can hardly remember what coffee tastes like.”

“You can drink all the espresso you want after Jamie’s out,” Carson said smoothly.

“Really?” Rodney asked, eyes perked up. “Because last time I was here for a physical you said-”

John clapped his hands together and rubbed them a bit. “So! Ultrasound. What have we got?”

Rodney scowled at John while Beckett raised his shirt up and squirted a blob of gel on his belly.

“Yikes! Jesus, do you keep it in the freezer?” Rodney yelped.

“Stop being a big baby,” Carson said with good humor, focusing on the ultrasound screen and using the wand to push the gel around.

As soon as the wand touched Rodney’s belly, it picked up the sounds of his body; organic whooshing and squishing noises as Carson wiggled the apparatus around a little.

The wand stopped and Rodney squinted his eyes at the pitter-patter sound that filled the room.

“Is that?” he started and trailed off.

Beckett smiled. “That’s her heart.”

John was looking at the screen and felt like he’d been hit by a bolt of lightning.

“Jesus, is that her?”

He’d been expecting something similar to the ancient scanner picture they’d seen before. Beckett had gotten an excellent reading and as long as Rodney’s blood work stayed within normal and it wasn’t absolutely necessary to have Rodney back in the scanner, Beckett had hesitantly said they would be okay to wait for the first ultrasound at twelve weeks, which was pretty inline with a normal pregnancy.

John figured he’d be up for seeing another cashew-ish like object, probably in lower resolution than that of the ancient scanner.

But this…this was…

In that moment. John Sheppard fell in love. With Jamie, with Rodney again, hell, with pretty much most of Atlantis and all Ancient technology.

He’d moved closer to the screen and Beckett deftly moved out of the way, able to keep one hand on the wand while he adjusted the contrast on the screen. He could see her. It wasn’t just some vague shaped object that Carson kept telling him was a baby, it _was_ a baby.

“You can see her head,” Beckett said softly. “And her arms, she’s moving around a bit in there.”

John nodded dumbly, eyes wide on the screen.

“But I don’t feel anything,” Rodney said, turning wide eyes from the screen to Beckett.

“No, she’s too wee still. Soon though, you’ll be praying for her to stay still!”

“Wow,” John breathed, staring at the screen unblinking.

Becket flipped a switch and a brown 3-D picture came up on the side of the black and white one.

“Holy fuck,” John said and clapped his hand over his mouth as if Jamie could hear him.

He couldn’t believe what he was looking at. A miniature person, perfect and small, eyes closed, slightly curled in on herself in brownish-beige 3D on the screen.

“Oh my God,” said Rodney. “She’s… she’s like a real person.”

“Aye, Rodney, she’s a real person.” Beckett made a few clicks on the machine to mark her length, the screen showing her at 4.54cm.

The small room was silent except for the steady rhythm of her heart coming through on the machine. Jamie kicked her feet and floated around a bit.

“It’s like null-gravity,” Rodney said quietly. “Look at her go.”

John didn’t realize he’d moved closer to the bed, to Rodney until he felt Rodney’s hand grasp his firmly.

“I take it you want a picture this time?” asked Beckett with a smile.

Rodney and John both nodded their heads, not saying anything as they stared at the screen.

Rodney squeezed John’s hand. “Look what we did,” he whispered.

John squeezed it back.

***  
 _Week Thirteen_

The planet was designated M2R-554 and had a name that actually rhymed with orange.

But everyone on Atlantis just called it the Pegasus Costco.

You could get _anything_ there.

It was at the far edge of a nebula and Rodney speculated there was something about the rocks that made Wraith darts unpredictable. The minerals were still in analysis by geology to see if they could be replicated and used as a protective shield or perhaps even weaponized.

Unfortunately, the same rock was highly acidic, making it tough to grow anything in the soil and fresh water was scarce. While the planet wasn’t suited for habitation, it was perfect for markets and traders to set up temporary camps and hock their wares.

Going stir crazy since his grounding, Rodney had toyed with the idea of going off world for the market trip until Zelenka distracted him with a new idea to make ZPM casings. They might not be able to charge one yet, but replicating the casing would be a start. John left him happily ensconced in the lab with Radek, the two of them excitedly gibbering to one another, Rodney snaking away on the beet-like tubers from PK8-393. John couldn't stand the bitter taste of them, even when the cooks tried to mask it with either brown sugar or salt, but Rodney had been eating them raw for two weeks straight with a little bit of pepper and some of the juice from a mango-like fruit from the mainland.

Carson said they were exceptionally good for Rodney and the baby, and if he could get the rest of the expedition eating them with the same enthusiasm, they’d have no need of multi-vitamins. Rodney’s fingers were permanently stained pink from their juice and he left little red fingerprints on everything he touched. It made it pretty easy to accuse him of lying when he said he wasn’t eating ice cubes out of the freezer.

Red fingerprints had been all over the tray, which had been put back _empty_.

Carson explained Rodney’s hormones were affecting his taste buds and scent receptors, making him at turns more and less sensitive to certain things. Which John understood intellectually, but it was still weird to see Rodney sniffing his old physics books. Something about the paper had him totally captivated.

Rodney made John promise before he left that if he saw anything like the puff pastries they’d been served at a harvest ritual on Z2W-33E that he’d buy a whole case.

It was a pretty relaxed milk run, so John took the time to look over the stalls, keeping in radio contact with the Marines doing grunt work of purchasing and shipping things back to Atlantis. They brought four botanists, two archeologists, three xeno-biologists and two of the cooks from the mess-hall with them on this trip. With three teams of marines, they were hoping to pick up quite a few things.

“For your lady?” he heard and looked up to see a man holding a bright purple colored necklace up. John smiled and shook his head, murmuring his thanks as he moved on.

He stopped short at the next booth.

Laid out in groupings were sets of little mittens, boots and matching hats.

Baby-sized.

He couldn’t say how many times he’d been to the market, and while he was sure they must have had things like this before, it was the first time he’d really noticed.

They were so tiny, so perfectly minuscule. He tentatively reached out a finger to touch one of the boots and is stunned to see the size of his digit next to it. He remembered carrying Torren in the Wraith dart after Teyla’s rescue; the warm weight of him, pliable and loose against his body, but somehow solid. In those first weeks he’d put on weight like a champ, turning into a chubby baby, with dimpled knees and elbows, and now a robust toddler, with his mother’s tenacity and the fearless spirit of children everywhere.

But John could remember how impossibly small his fingernails had been, each one a perfect half moon against his petite fingers and fragile bones.

He stroked the tiny boot. The yarn was soft under his fingertip; fuzzy and smooth at the same time. There was an array of colors - yellow, red, green and many patterned variations that used the blue-grey of the stargate as their base.

“You have a little one at home?”

He looked up to find a small woman standing in front of him, some kind of snuggly around her body, a baby sleeping soundly in it.

“No,” John said quickly, and then added. “Not yet.”

She smiled in understanding and in that moment even though she looked exhausted, she was beautiful. She cupped the skull of the baby with her palm.

“A word of advice,” she said with a wink. “Sleep now.”

He laughed quick and sharp at that. “I hear you should sleep when they sleep.” He said, gesturing awkwardly at the baby.

She rolled her eyes. “Yes, and when would I get anything done? When he is awake I am feeding him, changing him, walking him, cleaning up after him. When he is asleep, I can finally take care of things.”

Her tone was fond and warm and she absently ran her fingers over the fine hair of the baby’s head.

“Do you -” John started and then stammered at bit. “Do you sell those… carrier things?” he asked, pointing vaguely at her belly.

“Yes, would you like one?”

He was nodding before he realized it.

She pulled out several of them, laying them across the table. He stared down at the patterns, unable to stop himself from touching the material. He was also mesmerized at how easily she moved with her precious burden. The baby smacked his lips for a minute and then gave a huff. John laughed again.

“Is he your first?” John asked.

“Ancestors, no. My fourth.”

His eyes nearly bugged out of his head. She seemed so young. Then again, this was Pegasus, she probably wasn’t anymore than twenty-five.

“My husband is with the other three. It was my turn for freedom today,” she joked.

John found his fingers absently stroking the same carrier over and over. It was the same blue-grey as the gate, with aqua colored streaks that reminded John of the chevrons when they lit up.

“This one,” he said, tapping his finger on the material.

She nodded and folded it up, tying it with a piece of green ribbon.

“On my world, green is the color of good luck,” she said as she made a bow. “For your baby.”

“Thank you.”

He could feel the goofy grin he had on his face as he held his parcel close to him, his fingers running over the fabric constantly.

It wasn’t until he was back at the gate that he realized he’d forgotten to get one of the little hat sets.

He went through the incoming inventory, cataloguing purchases and assigning them out to divisions, Woolsey and Lorne assisting. He was distracted, itching to check the schedule to see when their next trip back would be, alternatively wondering if he could convince Woolsey for a special trip through the gate so he could go back to the stall before it moved or was gone by the next trip.

He was still trying to figure out a reasonable, logical excuse for him to go back as he trudged to the locker room. Feeling eyes on him, he looked up and saw Ronon grinning at him.

“What?” he asked.

Ronon’s grin widened and glancing around and seeing no one, he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a small package.

“Saw you looking at ‘em,” he said, slapping him hard on the shoulder with another grin as he walked away.

It was ridiculous but John felt his stomach roll with excitement as he too checked around for any one and finding himself alone, unwrapped the soft burlap.

Nestled inside was a set of booties, mitts and a skull cap in the same shade as the snuggly he purchased. He felt awed as he again marveled at their miniature size.

Hearing the sounds of heavy footsteps tromping down the hall, he quickly refolded them in the burlap and tucked it into one of his tac-vest pockets just as SGA-4 trundled into the locker room. He stuffed it all into his locker and shut it quickly.

***

Rodney drifted awake hearing the rumble of John’s voice. Still stuck somewhere in the shifty void between asleep and awake, he had no clue what John was talking about. He frowned trying to make sense out of the words.

And also trying to figure out why John’s voice was coming somewhere from the vicinity of his belly.

“… I used to ride horses a lot and when we go back to Earth, we can go to my brother’s house. Oh. I guess he’d be your uncle. So we’ll go to Uncle Dave’s house. He’s got little girls too and they both have ponies. I bet we could get you one and we could keep it there for when we’re Earth-side.”

Rodney realized with some amusement that John was talking to his belly. To Jamie. He struggled to remain very still.

“… and I’ll take you up in the puddlejumpers, provided we can find a good car seat. Or puddlejumper seat as the case may be. I bet you’d like all the colors when the HUD lights up and when you can see New Lantea from the windshield? It’s beautiful.”

Rodney could hear the rustle of bed clothes and the bed shook slightly as John moved, shifting on the bed. Rodney felt the weight of John’s hand as it ghosted over his belly.

“And someday, when you’re old enough, I’ll teach you how to fly them. Carson says you have my gene so you’ll be a snap at it.”

“There will be no flying until she’s at least eighteen years old,” Rodney said, unable to stay silent in the face of promised puddlejumper lessons. He cracked open his eyes staring at John.

“This is a private conversation,” John said with mock indignity, his fingers trailing patterns on the skin of Rodney’s belly. “And besides, on Earth you can get a learner’s permit when you’re fourteen.”

“That’s for cars.”

John shrugged. “Cars, ‘jumpers. Same thing. Now if you’ll excuse us?”

Rodney tried not to smile. “Sorry,” he said, closing his eyes again and feigning sleep.

“Where was I? Oh, yes. Puddlejumpers. The thing to remember when flying puddlejumpers is to let the jumper do the hard work…”

***

 _Week Fourteen_

The puking was petering off. At least, Rodney liked to think so. It was only certain smells that set him off now. The eggs Teyla had warned him about. The mystery meatloaf that he used to not mind. Those weird apple things from the mainland.

Oh God, the desalinization tanks and water purification system were stomach churning.

Of course there were also the smells he couldn’t get enough of. He was still having a bit of a love affair with the freezer ice and there was a fern-type plant in botany that had a kind of mint-pine smell he usually found harsh but now he thought it was fantastic. He convinced Katie Brown to give him a fresh clipping every couple of days so he could keep it in his pocket.

He would take it out and sniff it a few times a day, like a secret junkie.

Then there was John.

John smelled _sensational_.

He didn’t know if it was chemical or hormonal or part of some bizarre biological imperative.

The smell of John Sheppard was Rodney’s new religion.

Rodney hadn’t realized it had become a sort of fetish until the morning John stripped out of his panda bear t-shirt and tossed it on the bed and Rodney rolled over and snatched that panda shirt up like it was about to disappear and inhaled deeply.

John looked at him askance with a raised eyebrow and Rodney hadn’t cared in the slightest.

He just kept on sniffing.

Rodney had tried to wear the panda shirt but it was too snug in the shoulders and he couldn’t get the same effect while wearing it that he could if he scrunched it all up into a ball.

John’s pillows were fantastic as well. Rodney was working slightly shorter hours in the lab and would sometimes be home before John. He took those opportunities to smash his face into John’s pillow and breathe deep.

He was in the middle of doing just that and sighing happily when he heard the outer door to their quarters open and then John appeared in the door way.

“You know, it was flattering at first but now it’s bordering on creepy.”

Rodney didn’t even open his eyes. “I don’t care,” he said, words mushed by the pillow.

“Maybe I should just toss all my dirty laundry on the floor and you can just roll around like a pig in shit?”

“Don’t joke. If I wasn’t traumatized by the lack of sanitation that would be involved, I would do it.”

He heard the low sound of John’s chuckle and the bed dipped as he sat down on it. Rodney’s head popped up like a groundhog from a hole and he sniffed the air, catching the scent. He made a small contented sound, let go of the pillow and pressed his face into John’s back, inhaling deep.

John laughed and the reverberations of it made Rodney’s nose tingle.

He smelled stupidly, ridiculously, _impossibly_ good. It was familiar, comforting and arousing all at once. Rodney let his hands wander around to the front of John’s chest and he spread his palms flat against John’s pectorals, pulling him in closer. His dick was already starting to get with the program and he almost, _almost_ wanted to tell it to shut up just so he could sit here and run his nose all over John’s body.

But the thought of doing that, of John lying back and letting him, caused Rodney’s dick to take even more of an interest.

“I know,” Rodney said into John’s shirt. “I’m a sick, sick man and I don’t care. Jesus you smell good.”

John continued to half-heartedly chuckle as Rodney nosed his way up to the junction where his shoulder met his neck. Rodney gave it a good sniff and when he licked it, John’s chuckle broke off into quiet, quick moan.

Rodney gently forced John’s neck into a tilt so he could work his way up his hairline and over to his ear.

“Have you talked to Carson about your unhealthy obsession?” John teased.

Rodney smiled, his lips against John’s ear. “God no. You think I want to scar him for life?” He nipped at John’s ear lobe, worrying it a little between his teeth and John sighed.

“Lie down for me,” Rodney said lowly.

“You’re gonna have your way with me?” John asked, turning his head and opening his eyes to smirk at Rodney.

“I’m sure as hell going to try,” Rodney replied.

John darted his head forward and kissed Rodney quickly, firmly, before getting up and stretching out the length of the bed. Rodney rearranged himself to kneel over John’s legs, snaking his fingers underneath the material of John’s shirt and pushing it up and tugging it off. He took a moment to stare down at John - shirtless, relaxed and slightly aroused, eyes wide and attentive, happy to let Rodney do whatever he wanted. He was completely at ease and open.

Rodney didn’t know if it was hormones or the moment or just… them - here, now, together. But his heart lurched painfully in his chest, tightening slightly.

Something must have shown on his face because John immediately frowned a little bit and started running his hands over Rodney’s knees and thighs.

“You okay?” he asked.

Rodney nodded, feeling the warmth from John’s hands, the tactile soothing pressure of them. “Yeah. I’m… yeah,” he managed.

He leaned over and kissed John, a chaste press of the lips at first and then he licked at John’s lips once, and then again. On the third pass of his tongue, John’s slipped out to meet him and he felt John’s hands on his waist, steady and secure. He sighed contentedly into John’s mouth, breaking the kiss to start mouthing his way down John’s chin, pausing to suck on his Adam’s apple. John let out a sigh of his own, carding his fingers through Rodney’s hair.

Rodney worked his way down John’s neck slowly, stopping to sniff at John’s jugular, the tender spot behind his ear, and then at John’s clavicle, tonguing his collar bone, licking along the length of it.

He scooted his knees back a bit, giving his hands room to work on John’s pants, popping the button open and sliding the zipper down. John hummed a happy sound of agreement as Rodney slipped his fingers under the waistband of both pants and boxers and tugged them down gracelessly, one of John’s feet getting caught in the fabric. Rodney grumbled a curse and yanked it hard and heard John chuckle. He looked up to see John watching him with laughing eyes, hands restless at his sides.

Rodney couldn’t stop the rueful smile that curled at his own lips. “Are you thoroughly seduced yet?” he smirked.

“Getting there,” John replied easily.

Rodney took in John’s cock, almost fully erect. Placing his hands on John’s hips, he leaned over John for a moment to reach the nightstand and pull out their lube, dropping it on the bed for easy access. He settled down and nosed at the juncture of John’s hip and leg, inhaling deep. John’s scent there was stronger, more intense, more familiar. Rodney felt somewhat base and primal and there was something inherently sexy about it. He squeezed a dollop of lube into one of his hands and slicked up his palm, wrapping it around John’s cock and pulling while he darted his tongue out and licked at skin of John’s groin.

John let out a long groan and the sound of it, coupled with his current fascination with the way John smelled, made Rodney start to breathe hard in response. He could feel his own erection hemmed in tightly by his pants but he didn’t want to stop what he was doing to get undressed.

He lost track of time, wrapped up in the scent, sound and texture of John. He’d managed at some point to get his fingers slicked up and had three of them deep inside John, thrusting, massaging and pressing while he sucked John’s cock down hard.

The sounds John was making…

It was the sounds that were doing Rodney in. Soft, breathy, slightly high pitched, needy moans and gasps that John probably didn’t even realize he was making. These were the sounds that Rodney loved the most from John. The ones that he couldn’t control, that made him sound desperate and vulnerable and the fact that it was Rodney who pulled them out of John, that Rodney was the only one who got to hear them…

He could feel John’s body tighten, pulling taut, and recognized the hitch in John’s breath as he was about to come. He pulled his mouth of John suddenly and tugged down on his balls, curtailing his orgasm. The sound John made was… beautiful.

“Oh, god, oh god, Rodney, please please,” John breathed out, one hand fisted in the sheet, the other digging into Rodney’s shoulder. Rodney pushed his fingers in deep and pulled them out again, dragging them across John’s prostate and John’s fingers pressed hard into Rodney’s shoulder.

He almost, ( _almost_ ) wanted to keep John like this for hours. Just sit back and watch him writhe and ramble, platitudes to Rodney, to god. Rodney rocked his own hips against the bed, the pressure feeling fantastic and nearly painful but so good at the same time.

“I need… I need…”

“I know what you need.”

He took John as deep as he could into his throat, swallowing hard and convulsively around his length, pressing his fingers in deep at the same time.

John’s hips shot up and his throat surrendered a choked off sound that was almost a yelp or a sob, part Rodney’s name and part wordless. He came with a hot spurt down Rodney’s throat while Rodney thrust his fingers in and out gently, but insistently, each push making John’s cock twitch and pulse more.

John groaned low and almost relieved, his body relaxing like a limp noodle against the bed. Rodney pulled off with a pop and looked up to see John’s eyes barely slitted open, watching him, his lips parted slightly panting, chest heaving up and down. Pulling his fingers out of John carefully, Rodney smiled and crawled up John’s body.

“Good?” he asked needlessly.

“Ngh.”

Rodney pressed against John’s length, undulating his hips slowly, rocking his own erection, still trapped in his clothes, against John’s leg. The smell of sex and John was in the air, but he still buried his nose into John’s neck and breathed, running his hands over John’s chest, his shoulders, anywhere they could reach.

He felt John’s hands lazily open his waistband and slide inside, finding his boxers slightly damp with pre-come and sweat.

“Not sure I can live up to that,” John murmured drowsily, running his hand over Rodney’s hard length, pulling and twisting lightly.

“Mmm, don’t care. Jesus, fuck,” Rodney exclaimed in a whisper. “I want to keep you here all day so I can sniff you.”

John jacked him firmly and it took less than a minute for Rodney to feel his orgasm pooling before it jerked out of him almost effortlessly. He slumped against John’s chest while John’s clever fingers squeezed him a few more times until he was sated and soft.

He sighed happily.

“If this is pregnancy, I’m keeping you knocked up forever,” he heard John mutter by his ear.

***

 _Week Fifteen_

“We have to make this quick, I’ve got a simulation running in the lab and it’s almost done.”

Carson gave a wry smile at Rodney. “I live to serve. Up on the bed,” he replied dryly as he patted the sheet.

Rodney stepped up on the bed and laid back gingerly, tugging his pants slightly down and his shirt up as he did.

“And you better have warmed up that gel this time. There’s no need for it to be freezing, and seriously do you have to use so much?”

Carson eyeballed him and squirted a generous amount onto Rodney’s belly.

“Yeesh! Cold!” Rodney exclaimed. “You’re doing it on purpose. I know your evil tricks.”

“Yes, Rodney. I spend all day thinking about how I can make your life miserable, now be quiet so I can get a good scan.”

Rodney leaned back and rolled his eyes at the ceiling. “I don’t know why you insist on using this machine anyway.”

“Because when I asked if you would go back in the ancient scanner I got a twenty minute tirade on your claustrophobia,” Carson said back, rubbing the ultrasound wand over Rodney’s belly to spread the slick gel.

“Can you take a picture? For John? He had to go to the mainland and I was going to reschedule but he said it was fine but I thought a picture would be nice. And make it a good one, not one of those grainy ones where you can’t tell if you’re looking at a human baby or a seahorse.”

“Aye, Rodney, your wish is my command.” Carson drew the wand back and forth a few more times and then frowned slightly. He shifted his grip and pressed it down a bit more.

“Jeannie once showed me an ultrasound of Madison and I said all the appropriate things but honestly, it was like staring at a bowl of oatmeal floating in space. It was just a couple of big blobs and then maybe a stick thing that could have been an arm, but really, could have been her spleen for all you could tell.”

Carson was quiet, his eyebrows drawn together and his lips thinning.

“I don’t hear anything. Usually by now I hear the squishy thumpa thumpa thumpa,” Rodney complained looking over at the monitor.

Carson pressed the wand against his stomach a few more times and Rodney started to feel sick. He looked from Carson’s face, to the screen, back to his friend’s face. Carson’s jaw was tight and Rodney could see the ‘doctor mask’ coming down over his features.

“Why don’t I hear anything?” Rodney asked quietly, voice tight.

Carson took the ultrasound wand away and wiped off the gel on Rodney’s belly, not meeting Rodney’s eyes. Rodney felt suddenly very cold and a fine sweat started breaking out on his lip. His throat started to hurt and he thought he might vomit.

“I’m very sorry, Rodney.”

Rodney started shaking his head. “No.”

“I’ll put you in the Ancient scanner to be sure but -”

“No,” said Rodney, surprised to find that his own voice sounded far away and tinny to him. “I feel fine.”

“It’s very common that there are no symptoms.”

Rodney shook his head again. “No, there’s something wrong with your machine. Your stupid voodoo machine.”

“As I said, I want to do another scan with the Ancient tech but… Rodney, you were a very high risk pregnancy from the start. We discussed it. Your hormone levels, your body structure, the unknown nature of the technology -”

“But I told you, I feel fine. I would know if there was something wrong. I would,” Rodney argued.

“It’s likely the fetus wasn’t viable.”

“Stop it,” said Rodney sharply, angrily. His chest felt tight. It was getting hard to breathe. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Rodney,” said Carson gently. “I think it would be best if we could get you in the Ancient scanner. It’s likely going to confirm that -”

“Don’t.”

“That the baby died,” Carson finished. He placed his hand on Rodney’s arm and Rodney stared at Carson’s fingers against the fabric of his uniform. He could hear the air ventilation system buzzing and it sounded like it needed a flushing. He should talk to Zelenka about it.

“Her name is Jamie.”

“Aye. Jamie,” Carson repeated. “After we get the results from the scanner, we’ll need to discuss prepping you for surgery. Your body has no way to…” Carson swallowed. “Your body cannot deal with this on its own.”

Rodney’s eyes flicked over from Carson’s hand on his arm to his stomach. His slightly rounded stomach. Nothing felt different. He didn’t feel sick. He didn’t feel tired. In fact, he’d been pretty relieved that he hadn’t thrown up in two days.

“Oh,” he said quietly.

“What?” asked Carson.

“I haven’t been sick in two days. Does that… Is that when…”

“We don’t know anything right now, Rodney. Let’s get you to the Ancient scanner.”

Rodney nodded.

***

 _Afterward_

Not that he sat around thinking about it often, but when he did, one of the reasons John thought he was an effective commander is that he never asked anything of the men that he wasn’t willing to do himself.

After helping the Athosians plow their fields for the entire day, he was seriously reconsidering that idea.

And he was wondering how hard it would be to requisition some horses.

The mental picture of horses either in the supply hold on the Deadalus or coming through the event horizon made him snort back a chuckle. Would they need to be saddled up to come through the gate? Would Landry cattle-prod them from the other side? Or better yet, Teal’C with his Jaffa stick. Who would clean up the mess they were sure to make at Stargate Command?

Yeah, it was doubtful he was going to be able to get horses on the supply list. But he couldn’t help wishing for them.

It wasn’t like they would make the jumper smell any worse. Shuttling back an entire troupe of sweaty, dirty marines that had spent the day doing manual labour, John was sure the only thing that was going to clear out the stench would be hosing it down from the inside with bleach.

Although, there was something to be said for regular, simple manual labour. The Marines were in good cheer; tired but satisfied with their work. Not that there were ever a lot of fights, but stationed on a closed base with no where to really go and a high stress environment led to the occasional scuffle. John figured the number of disagreements would drop sharply for a few days after the time spent working on the mainland.

He docked the jumper easily, listening in to the chatter of the Marines as they joked and caroused, offering the occasional nod or smirk when required. He was the last one out of the shuttle and was surprised to find Woolsey standing just inside the doors to the bay, his face shuttered.

John frowned as he made his way over.

“Colonel Sheppard, I take it things went well on the mainland?”

John shrugged. “Yeah, same as always. Is something up?”

Woolsey turned his head to the remaining Marines that were straggling out of the bay, his face twisting in the somewhat smile that passed as his greeting. He waited till all the Marines were gone before turning back to John.

“Dr. Beckett has requested that you come to the infirmary.”

“Sure, I’ll just clean up a bit and then head right there.” John jerked his thumb over his shoulder and started to turn the same way when Woolsey’s hand on his arm stopped him.

“Colonel Sheppard. John. It would be best if you headed directly there.”

John felt his stomach drop a bit as he put two and two together. He stood there staring at Woolsey until the other man gestured and spoke.

“Why don’t we walk together?”

***

John didn’t know what he expected when he entered the infirmary, but the quiet and subdued environment wasn’t it. He hadn’t asked Woolsey what happened and Woolsey hadn’t said. Somehow it was like as long as no one said anything, then he could almost, _almost_ pretend there wasn’t anything wrong.

Woolsey led him over to Dr. Beckett’s office and cleared his throat to get the doctor’s attention. When Beckett looked up, John noted he looked tired and worn, but he didn’t look distraught and that made something loosen inside John’s chest. A quiet, unnamed part of him had feared that Rodney was somehow dead, but seeing Carson looking somber but not devastated meant that whatever had happened, Rodney was still alive.

Woolsey made a discreet exit and Carson closed the door softly behind John.

“I’m glad you’re back, John,” said Beckett as he leaned against the desk.

So he was ‘John,’ right now, not ‘Colonel Sheppard.’ That meant serious news.

“What happened? Where’s Rodney?” John asked, hearing his voice come out even and clear, years of training steadying it.

“Rodney’s resting, in recovery. I’m afraid we lost the baby.”

The way Beckett delivered the news was like a strange one-two punch of relief and sorrow at the same time. If Rodney was resting, he was fine. But the baby. No, not _the baby_ … Jamie.

“What happened?” John repeated. “He was just going to come in for a checkup today.”

Beckett nodded. “Aye. I’m afraid I couldn’t find a heartbeat during the ultrasound and then we confirmed it with the Ancient scanner.”

“He hates that thing,” John murmured.

“He does, but we needed to be sure. My best estimate is that the baby passed away a couple days ago.” Carson spoke slowly and clearly, giving his words a chance to sink in and be heard before moving onto the next ones.

“Days? That can just… happen?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“But… I mean, they seemed fine. All the tests were… and the ultrasound…” A painful fist enveloped his stomach and squeezed as he said the word ‘ultrasound’ and he remembered seeing her on the screen, her head, her arms, tiny little legs, hearing her heart beat.

“It’s common for there not to be any symptoms. Even with a more… traditional pregnancy. These things happen.”

John let his brain think on that for a moment. He felt like he was hearing all the words and they were waiting in a queue in his mind - getting understood and processed slower than normally. There were too many other thoughts running through his head. No pony would be bought on Earth, no piano lessons, no play dates with Torren, no puddlejumper rides.

“Do you know why?”

Beckett sighed. “As I said to Rodney, this was a long shot from the get go. I’ve not got any firm answers for you right now and we might not get any. We’ve no idea if the device was generally successful when utilized in the correct manner, never mind being accidentally jump started on a male, and a non-Ancient at that.”

“But Rodney has the gene.”

“After receiving gene therapy, aye. Or it could be his age, or it could be the device was never successful in the first place, or the fetus may not have been viable.”

“Oh.” It was such a silly thing to say, just ‘oh,’ but John had nothing else in his brain at that moment. He looked down at his hands, then at the floor, then back at Beckett.

“But, Rodney’s okay?”

Beckett nodded. “He’s still asleep from surgery.”

“Surgery?” John repeated and then his brain filled in the blanks for him. “Oh,” he said again.

“He’ll need to stay here overnight and then tomorrow we’ll see where he’s at and if things look okay, he can go back to your quarters.”

It all seemed so quick to John. Like Rodney should need to be in the infirmary for weeks instead of only a day. He felt like he was watching their conversation on television, only someone had turned the speed up just a little too fast, making it all seem jarring and out of balance.

“Why didn’t you call me sooner?” John finally asked.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done,” Beckett said lowly. “As I said, after the ultrasound, we used the scanner and once it was confirmed…” Beckett paused, considering his words carefully. “Rodney was… distraught. Understandably so. He was getting increasing agitated and upset. The… procedure could have waited for you to return and when I mentioned that, well…” Beckett sighed. “Unfortunately, that upset him more.”

“To wait for me?”

“It wasn’t so much waiting for you, lad,” Beckett explained. “I think it was…” Beckett rubbed his hand over his face. John thought this was probably the worst part about being a doctor. In a strange way, he felt a certain kinship with Carson about it. He himself had to deliver bad news to people all the time. He would know what he wanted to say and just as surely as he knew the words, he knew he couldn’t say them out loud without either sounding completely horrific or completely robotic. “At that point, we knew the baby was gone and Rodney couldn’t wait.”

There was a very quiet knock at the door and Beckett looked over as a slightly bashful nurse poked her head in.

“I’m very sorry to disturb you, but Dr. McKay is waking up.” Her voice was soft and low, the practiced tone of a nurse.

“Thank you,” replied Beckett. He turned back to John. “Give me a moment to check his vitals and then you can come on over.”

John nodded slowly as Beckett gave him a reassuring squeeze on the arm and made his way out of the small office. He watched the doctor leave and go to a curtained off area, disappearing behind the fabric. John could make out Beckett’s feet underneath the curtain and he watched them step over to the bed and pause, balance shifting slightly. He imagined he could almost hear the soft Scottish tones as Beckett checked on Rodney. John had been on the receiving end of those tones too many times. Without a doubt, Rodney was swimming up to consciousness; bleary brained and foggy, hearing Carson’s voice reassure him that things were fine, he was doing fine, and then listing off what time it was, where they were and only the briefest details of surgery before asking if there was any undue pain. Beckett could perform a medical miracle in the OR, save your life several times over and without fail tell you things went well and you were doing fine as long as you rested and took time to recover.

While it was always unnerving to wake up from anesthesia, Beckett’s calm voice always made John feel better.

He had no idea if Rodney felt the same way.

Carson poked his head around the curtain and gave John a sympathetic smile before beckoning him over. While he didn’t actually make the conscious decision to move, his feet started carrying him across the infirmary to Rodney.

“I’m just gonna draw the curtain and there’s no one else here so you’ve some privacy.”

John nodded and as Beckett started to leave, John had a panicking desire to clutch at him and make him stay. He pulled a chair over from the corner and finally looked at Rodney as he sat down.

Rodney’s eyes were slitted half-open watching John as he sank down into the chair and scooched it a little closer.

“Hey,” John said quietly.

Rodney gave a half grunt back in acknowledgement. He was pale and sallow, looking drawn and tired. John put both his hands on Rodney’s forearm, resisting the urge to clamp down with all his might.

“Beckett… explained everything to me.”

Rodney’s head barely nodded, chin moving slightly up and down as his eyes closed briefly. John hated ‘Quiet Rodney.’ ‘Quiet Rodney’ meant something was really, really fucking wrong. It made John’s heart beat a little faster, made him sweat a little bit when Rodney was quiet.

“So, I guess you’ll be a guest here overnight but Beckett says if all goes well you can come home tomorrow.”

Another half nod and John’s heart tripped over its beats.

“You probably won’t be up for quasi-beef stroganoff tonight, but I could probably score a few helpings of dessert.”

“I’m sorry,” Rodney murmured suddenly.

John wanted to sigh in relief. Words, actual words, coming from Rodney. “Sorry for what?”

“I thought I could do it. I wasn’t trying to be arrogant. I really thought I could do it.”

John leaned forward, understanding. “Buddy, this isn’t your fault. Beckett says these things happen and sometimes we don’t know why.”

“But if he doesn’t know why, that means it could be my fault.”

“I’m telling you it isn’t,” John said firmly.

“But you don’t know,” Rodney argued, his voice surprisingly strong. “You don’t know with any degree of certainty.”

“No, but I know you and you did everything you were supposed to.”

“Not at the beginning. At the beginning I didn’t know and I was drinking coffee and eating power bars and staying up late…”

“And she was fine,” John said quickly. “All the tests said she was fine. We just… we don’t know why it happened,” he added with a shrug. He was smoothing his fingertips over the hairs on Rodney’s arms, going with the grain.

There was a long pause while John stared at Rodney, and Rodney stared at some point between his arm and the bedrail.

“I asked if I could see her,” Rodney said haltingly. “And Carson said no.” It was like Rodney was waiting for some kind of response from John. When he didn’t get one, he continued. “Did you see her?”

John shook his head, throat tight. “I don’t think it’s like that.”

“I just thought - I thought maybe if I could see her then…”

“No,” John said, shaking his head slowly, eyes focused on the weave of the blanket covering Rodney. Rodney’s eyes slid over to John quickly and then away for a moment. He opened his mouth and John tensed, waiting for him to speak, but he closed it again without saying anything.

John wanted to put his head down, wanted to just pull a bed over and crawl into it with the blanket over his face but he forced himself to stay upright. Rodney was blinking wildly, his eyes rimmed in red making the blue stand out, pale and sharp. He looked back at John and stared like he was just seeing him now and then tilted his head slightly.

“You look like shit,” he said plainly. “You’re covered in sweat and grime and…” he sniffed the air. “You reek.”

John had a sad smile for Rodney’s biting tone. “Tilling Athosian fields is hard work.”

“I wouldn’t know, thank god.” Rodney turned his arm over and John slid his palm into Rodney’s. Rodney tightened his fingers around John’s. “You should go clean up,” he said quietly. “Find me pudding. Bring me lots.” He slid his fingers free and gave John’s hand a pat.

“I… I,” John stammered. He didn’t want to leave. He’d just arrived. But he was dirty and felt like he needed time to process everything before he could make sense of it.

“I’ll be here,” Rodney said, and his tone was both dry and distant. “Really. Go. It’s okay.”

John hesitated and then stood. “Teyla and Ronon?” he asked.

Rodney paused. “I didn’t want anyone to know before you. I’m not sure where they are.”

“‘kay. Maybe I’ll bring back a laptop and we can watch a movie or something here tonight.”

Rodney’s eyes were already closing but he was giving John another one of his half nods.

“I’ll be right back,” John said, stalling. He was up, he was ready to go but he felt like he couldn’t leave.

“Seriously. You _reek_. Beat it.”

“Back before you know it,” John replied and Rodney waved him off with a hand.

***

John checked with Beckett on his way out of the infirmary to make sure Rodney was allowed to have pudding or something light from the mess. Carson vetoed anything too heavy but gave the all go-ahead to the near-applesauce dessert and pudding cups the mess had on tonight. He showered quickly and then called Ronon and Teyla on his radio and asked if they could meet at Teyla’s quarters.

Ten minutes later he found himself stumbling over his words, using his ‘Lieutenant Colonel’ voice - which he hardly ever used with Teyla and Ronon - telling them that they lost the baby.

“I had wondered where Rodney was today,” Teyla said sadly after offering her condolences. “I did not see him at the mess for lunch, nor for dinner.” She placed her hand on John’s arm. “Would he be up to receiving us this evening?”

John nodded. “I think so. You guys are the only ones who know. I guess we’ll have to think of something to tell people.”

“Do not trouble yourself, I shall speak with Dr. Beckett. There is a common ailment among you, is there not? One of your non-vital organs needing removal?”

It took him a second to realize she was talking about appendicitis. “Yeah, the appendix. It gets inflamed sometimes, has to be removed.”

Teyla nodded. “That is the one. Not that it is anyone’s business, but if they ask, that is what we shall tell them.”

“You bringing a movie by?” asked Ronon gesturing at the laptop John was carrying.

John nodded. “Yeah. _Talledega Nights_.”

Ronon smirked at that. He and John had gone around bumping fists yelling ‘Shake and Bake!’ for weeks after watching it, while Rodney rolled his eyes and tried not to laugh.

“I can go to your place, if you want. Take care of the baby’s things,” Ronon offered. “Unless you guys would rather do that yourselves.”

His eyes widened slightly. _Jesus,_ he hadn’t even thought of that. They had a ton of baby stuff in one of the closets. Clothes, toys, a little crib.

“Yeah,” he said and he had to swallow a bit around the tightness in his throat. “Yeah, if you could. Maybe the Athosians…?” he trailed off and looked at Teyla.

“We would be honored to share your items on the mainland. They will be of great use.”

Somehow, that made him feel better, to know that they wouldn’t go to some unseen closet somewhere on Atlantis never to see the light of day again.

“Thanks, that would…” he had to pause for a second. “That would be great.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “I should go. Pudding. Movie. Rodney.”

Teyla bowed her head forward slightly and he awkwardly juggled the laptop as he did the same. The laptop was crushed against his chest when Ronon pulled him into the quickest, fiercest hug he’d ever gotten.

“You go to the infirmary, we’ll get the food,” Ronon said, releasing him.

“Thanks.”

“Stop saying thanks.” Ronon slapped him once more on the arm and he and Teyla headed to the messhall while John left for the infirmary.

***

After being in the infirmary for two days, it was a relief to be able to go home. Rodney shuffled out of bed and carefully got dressed in the clothes John had brought him. They were silent as he got ready although Rodney managed a weak smile for Carson when he was officially discharged with orders to return immediately if anything felt off.

His entire lower mid-section felt ‘off’; empty and pulled at, tender and strange.

But he didn’t know how to articulate that to Carson so Rodney simply nodded.

Radek must have done some serious interference with the science teams because no one had bothered Rodney once while he was in the infirmary and no one tried to talk to him in the hallway on his stilted walk home, with John cupping one of his elbows, his eyes darting around to ward off any stray personnel who might try to come up and talk to Rodney.

Rodney was pretty grateful. He just didn’t have it in him to even snark at anyone right now.

Once the doors to their quarters had shut behind them, Rodney breathed in the familiar scent that was home - a mixture of sea salt from the ocean air, coffee and gun oil, with a hint of soap tossed in.

It was infinitely better than the smell of the infirmary which always had an undertone of ‘sick’ no matter how much everything was disinfected and cleaned. Or maybe because of it.

The short walk had tired him out and he immediately headed in the direction of the bed.

“You wanna watch a movie or something?” John hedged.

Rodney sank down onto the mattress, wincing slightly as it pulled at his stitches. “Maybe. Nothing I have to pay attention to. Just something for background.”

“Sure,” John nodded and scrambled to get the laptop set up and a movie queued to go. Rodney finally looked up to see John hovering over him.

“What?” he asked.

“You want anything to eat? Or drink? Or you know if you’re not comfortable I can get some pillows or something.”

“I’m just tired,” Rodney replied. “And I smell like infirmary. Blerghh.”

“You want a shower? I mean, a bath would probably be better but you can’t get your stitches too wet. But I could -”

“Stop.”

“What?”

“Just,” Rodney waved a hand. “With the mother hen-ing. I’ll be fine. I am fine.”

John shifted on his feet. “I just… give me something _to do_.”

Rodney paused and looked at him. John was practically vibrating as he stared down at Rodney. It reminded him of a border collie, desperate for a task, all that energy and focus needing something to be put toward.

“Maybe some coffee and cookies would be nice.”

Rodney could see John sag with relief. “I can do that. You just - I’ll go and be right back.”

“Okay.”

With John gone, the quiet pressed in on Rodney. In the infirmary there was always something beeping or whirring. Someone moving around, coming in or going out. Even in the less trafficked corner he’d been in, he could still hear the hustle and bustle of daily life going on from the other side of the room.

But here, now, it was quiet, just an almost imperceptible hum from the laptop as it sat next to him on the bed. He stared at it for a minute before reaching out and pulling it to his lap. He exited the movie player and fired up the Atlantis server, using his command codes to hack into his medical file.

He scrolled through the first bit, already familiar to him. It wasn’t like he’d never hacked his own file before. His hypoglycemia, allergies and injuries all catalogued. It was somewhat darkly amusing to see the first half of his life with regular trips to the doctor interspersed with various hospitalizations for anaphylaxis and then reach the part where he joined the Atlantis expedition and see the marked increase in his trips. Wraith stunner, wraith enzyme, near drowning and hypothermia, arrow to the ass, near ascension, etc etc.

He finally reached the most current section dealing with the pregnancy and he stopped and read each line, each test and note Beckett had made, noting his numbers and if there were any anomalies.

Other than the fact that he was male, which Beckett continually noted (as though someone would forget when reading the chart), there were no red flags, no glaring notations.

He swallowed hard when he reached the part he was most interested. The word miscarriage seemed to jump out at him, like it was bolded on the screen. He read through the medical jargon that described his visit to the infirmary. He got to the part about Beckett not finding a heartbeat, nor seeing any activity, about putting Rodney in the ancient scanner. Rodney pulled up the scan, reviewing the data and meta data, his fingers ghosting over the screen when he could make out the distinct and precious shape of Jamie. He forced his eyes away from it and kept reading until he reached the last section.

 _At this time, the cause of the miscarriage is still unknown. No genetic or biological anomalies were found with the fetus (for separate analysis see file 20-09-0887 - McKay-Sheppard, Jamie). The patient’s hormonal levels were slightly off of normal, but still within regularly acceptable parameters. There are too many unknown variables surrounding the device by which impregnation and the biological alterations to the patient’s physiology occurred. Scientist Radek Zelenka will continue to search through the Ancient Database for any further information. The Ancients may have abandoned this machine because it was unsuccessful, or it may be unfinished._

 _There do not appear to be, at this time, any long term physical effects to the patient. A modified hysterectomy removed most of the additional biological material which the machine generated. Further material should be absorbed by the body._

 _Post-partum hormone levels require monitoring as initial tests showed a significant drop. The patient has been scheduled for follow up appointments every four days. Subsequent recommendation to see base psychiatrist._

 _Medical remains of the fetus were cremated._

He made it to the bathroom just in time to spew out mostly bile and the undigested remains of some blue jello.

The act of puking caused his entire torso to clench up painfully, sending sharp spikes into his stomach and belly. He felt a cold sweat break out on his face.

 _Medical remains of the fetus were cremated._

He could see that sentence in his mind as if it had been burned across his retinas.

He’d felt the question tingling the edge of his conscious thought for the last two days, like some dark shape trailing its cold fingers across and iron gate. He’d been afraid to articulate the thought, afraid to put words to what he needed to know.

What happened to her?

Now he knew and part of him wished he could un-know. Wished he could go back to that horrible feeling of having it hovering like a noxious cloud over his brain. It was better than seeing those words on the screen.

 _Medical remains of the fetus were cremated._

He started heaving again, eyes watering, throat burning, stitches in his stomach screaming in protest at the clenching of muscles and full body contractions that had him huddled over the toilet.

Some distant part of him finally registered John’s hands on him. On his shoulders, pulling him away from the toilet, rubbing a warm washcloth over his face and lips, murmuring something to him. It was like he could see John through a telescope, very far away, talking to him, but not being able to make out the words.

He wasn’t sure how long it was like that.

Then John’s face was replaced by Carson’s and Rodney blinked a few times and realized he was still sitting on the bathroom floor. He looked down and saw a pressure cuff around his arm, Carson in the middle of taking his pressure and pulse.

“When did you get here?” Rodney asked.

Carson smiled, pulling the stethoscope out of his ears. “There you are. I think you had a bit of a panic attack of some sort, Rodney. How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” he said without thinking and he heard a sharp sound come from off to his side and looked over to see John hunched down next to him. He gave Rodney a weak smile.

“Hey, buddy.”

“You’re back.” Rodney blinked a few more times. He felt John’s hand on the back of his neck give him a solid squeeze.

“Yeah, I came back from the mess and you were puking your guts out in here. You okay?”

Even thought the last part of it was directed at Rodney, John turned to Carson. Rodney stared at the side profile of John’s face, noting the crow’s feet around his eyes, the tight, tired look he had on.

“Rodney,” said Carson and Rodney turned his head slowly toward him. “Why don’t we get you settled back in bed. I just want to check your stitches.”

Rodney nodded dumbly and felt John’s strength heave him to his feet and then direct him to the bed. Rodney paused when he saw the laptop still there, screen open.

Seeing Rodney’s face, Carson turned and looked at the laptop, eyes darting back and forth quickly as he read. “Oh, Rodney,” he said lowly. He closed the program and shut the lid of the computer with a ‘click.’ “If you have questions, you should bloody well come and ask them and not hack your file like some truant school-boy.” There was no heat, no anger behind Carson’s words, only a weary resignation.

“I thought maybe there was something you weren’t telling me,” Rodney said weakly. John helped him sit on the bed and Rodney looked up at him. “Both of you, maybe.”

He realized then that John looked like he felt. Wrung out, worn thin and exhausted.

“I don’t know anything you don’t, Rodney,” John said.

“Oh.”

Carson lifted up the hem of Rodney’s shirt and quickly checked the bandage covering his stitches . Whatever he saw must of satisfied him because he nodded to himself and then dropped Rodney’s shirt. “There’s nothing I haven’t told the two of you that you need to know. But if you have questions, either of you,” Carson directed his gaze at John and then back to Rodney. “You can come see me. Rodney, you need to rest. You’re system’s suffered quite a shock and is still recovering. And when I say rest, I mean no work, no hacking into the server to check your files, no sending Radek emails about ZedPM’s or wormholes or whatever it is you do in that lab of yours all day long. And you, Colonel,” he looked back at John. “You could do with some rest yourself. I’m putting you on light duty for a week.”

John opened his mouth to protest but Carson cut him off. “There will be no discussion. This isnna democracy. I’ll have one of my staff bring you both something for lunch.” Carson stood and stared down at the dresser and that’s when Rodney noticed the cup of coffee and plate of cookies sitting there. “You can have one of the cookies but no coffee on your stomach,” he said and took the mug. “Call me if anything comes up.”

They both watched him leave, Rodney on the bed, John standing next to it somewhat awkwardly, hands hanging limply at his side.

“Pushy,” John groused and Rodney knew it was to break the tension that was building between them in the wake of Carson’s departure.

“Yeah,” muttered Rodney.

“Soooo,” drawled John. “Movie?”

Rodney shrugged. “I guess.”

John sat down carefully on the other side of the bed and Rodney watched out of the corner of his eye as John eased into a seated position, grabbed the laptop and rooted around on it for a few seconds.

“Dune?” John asked.

“Sure,” Rodney said again.

John fired up the movie, placing the laptop carefully between them where they could both see it.

It was only inches between him and John but it felt a lot further.

“Think the Bene Gesserit have sex with each other?” John asked and even Rodney with his social awkwardness could hear the forced light tone.

Rodney made a face. “I hope not,” he answered somewhat dully. Still, John was trying so he figured he should give it a shot as well. “You know, it took me two seasons of Next Generation to stop thinking of Picard as Gurney Halleck.”

“Took me about that long to get over Troi’s accent. Was it there? Was I imagining it?” John shifted slightly on the bed. “That and the jumpsuits.”

Rodney groaned. “Oh God, the jumpsuits!” he exclaimed while the opening credits rolled. “They could travel at warp speed, had transporters and hyposprays yet they were all still wearing one piece outfits. Could you imagine what a pain in the ass going to the bathroom would be in a jumpsuit? Everyday?”

“Well I hope they weren’t going _in_ the jumpsuits,” John drawled.

Rodney turned to look at John and saw the ghost of a smile on John’s face. John looked tired. Maybe a little haggard. His snappy retort died on his lips.

“Let’s hope not,” he mumbled, turning back to the screen.

They watched in silence.

***

The next few days were painful.

They danced around each other like nervous animals at a water hole. Each of them glancing up to see what the other one was doing without wanting to be caught staring.

Watching movies or listening to music turned into fights of who could be the most apathetic or accommodating, each one of them protesting that they didn’t care what the other one picked.

Rodney picked Back to the Future because he thought John would want to watch it. John protested that he knew Rodney didn’t like it so they could watch something else, something Rodney wanted.

Rodney said there wasn’t really anything he wanted to watch.

John replied that it didn’t matter to him.

Rodney answered that if it didn't matter, then why the hell didn’t they just watch Back to the Future?

John didn’t say anything as he queued the movie up.

Another movie watched in silence.

John was nervous to leave their quarters, remembering his short trip to the mess hall Rodney’s first day home. Coming back and finding Rodney unresponsive and retching his guts out. John had been scared and worried, thinking for a moment that maybe the Ancient machine had done something else to Rodney they didn’t know and this was it. First Jamie, then Rodney.

At the same time, the oppressiveness of their quarters was wearing him down, like relentless sandpaper on a wooden plank. He needed to get out but didn’t know how.

John thought it was a relief to both of them the next day when Ronon and Teyla showed up at their door with breakfast on trays and lunch in a picnic basket and declared they were all taking a jumper out to the mainland for some sun, relaxation and lunch.

Ronon was never much of a talker, so him being silent wasn’t awkward or strange, it simply was. In fact, it was kind of soothing and relaxing. Teyla, having been trained to be a diplomat her whole life, was easily able to start a conversation about the new irrigation system on the mainland, brining Rodney in to discuss the aqua-ducts of the Romans, which she had learned about from one of the science staff, and then drawing John in with follow up questions on the Roman army and their efficiencies.

Quite frankly, the woman was brilliant. She managed to keep a steady stream of conversation going for the entire ride, and by the end of it, John found himself discussing with Ronon how they could use Roman organization tactics against the Wraith. He overheard Teyla and Rodney discussing building a coliseum-type structure out of the local rock for the Athosians to begin holding games, concerts or plays. Ronon was nodding and agreeing with what John was saying as he spread out the blankets they had brought and started pulling out the food.

John loved them all in that moment.

They ate their sandwiches, snacked on fruit and chips and washed it all down with soda and water. Their little picnic spot had started out in the shade, but as the sun moved, a slice of light burned across the blanket and John stretched in the heat, letting the sun warm his body. He closed his eyes and tuned out the sound of Ronon, Teyla and Rodney talking, letting their words wash over him unintelligible and meaningless.

The next thing he was aware of, he was waking up with a painfully dry mouth and his body on the verge of that too hot, slightly sick, kind of sweaty feeling you get after some naps. He blinked a few times because it was dark and stuffy. Really stuffy. He reached up and realized he had a large brimmed hat sitting on his face. Pulling it off, he sat up and blinked again in the harsh light. Teyla looked up from her book.

“Good afternoon. There is water in the cooler for you.”

He blearily reached for the cooler, crawling over. He found a bottle of cold water and chugged half of it before sitting back down, crossing his legs.

“How long did I sleep?”

“Only about half an hour.”

He looked around. “Where are Rodney and Ronon?”

“I believe that Ronon wanted to show Rodney some caves that he found here with some drawings on them. He said they weren’t Ancient, but appeared to be similar.” She carefully folded the page of the book she was reading ( _One Thousand Years of Solitude, huh_ thought John) and looked up at him expectantly.

John folded his knees up slightly, hooking his arms around them, the half-full water bottle dangling from his hands.

“Divide and conquer, huh?”

Teyla raised an eyebrow. “Yes.”

He sighed. “Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

“I do not want you to tell me anything you do not wish to speak of.”

His shoulders moved in a half shrug, causing the water in the bottle to slosh a bit. “Great. Works for me.”

“But,” she continued, her eyes strong and serene. “I do think there are things you would like to say. Or perhaps, emotions you need to express.”

He pretended to ponder that for a moment. “Nope. I’m good.”

“I’m sorry for pushing you, but I can see the toll this is taking on you and on Rodney. You look tired, John.”

“I’m okay, Teyla, really. I’m a little tired but…” he trailed off, waving a hand absently. “You know.”

Teyla paused for a moment, lips pursing. “I believe the loss of a child to be the most difficult burden to bear. It contradicts the natural order of family. I know families, people, who have lost much and those that lose a child, to a culling, to disease, to an accident, are often the hardest to console.”

“We never had her to lose,” John said quickly.

“Is that how you truly feel?”

“Yes,” he lied.

She nodded calmly and he could tell she didn’t believe him at all. “Have you and Rodney spoken about her? About what happened?”

He couldn’t speak. The casual, ‘no’ he’d been about to utter stuck in his throat. He shook his head.

“Why not?”

The plastic of the water bottle gave a loud crack and he looked down to find he was crushing it in his hand. He let go and it snapped and crackled back to its original shape.

“We don’t… I can’t… he’s just… I don’t know if I should.”

“Do you think he wishes not to speak of her?”

John shrugged and started peeling at the soggy paper label of the bottle. “I don’t know.”

“Do you wish to not speak of her?”

He put the bottle down and sighed. “I don’t know that either.”

She nodded again as though he was confirming things she already knew. He probably was. She was able to read them all so well, and he was never sure if it was the fact that she’d been trained to meet with new people, to learn how to politically appease them from so young, or if she was chosen for the job because it was already in her nature.

“If you wish to speak of her, I will listen. Or if you wish to speak of anything at all.”

He bobbed his head, avoiding her eyes while he poked at the soggy label some more until it was torn off the plastic in limp, wet strips and a sodden mess at his feet.

***

John wasn’t sure what woke him, but when he rolled over to check on Rodney, he wasn’t in bed. He blinked a couple of times and rubbed his eyes with one hand, frowning as he sat up. The bedroom was dark, and the light in the bathroom was off too. He snapped the sheets back with a flick of his wrist and slid out of bed. He could hear rustling coming from outside the bedroom and wasn’t sure what he’d find when he pulled open the door.

Rodney’s boxer-clad ass was hanging out of the closet while he dug around for something on his hands and knees.

“Buddy, what are you doing?” John asked, voice sleep roughened.

Rodney pulled himself out of the closet on his knees, soft hair akimbo, eyes wide. “I can’t find any of her things.”

John stilled and had a moment to think _oh shit_.

“Why are you looking for them?” he asked. He wasn’t even sure why. Did it matter? He stomach turned sickly.

“I just… I wanted to see them. I…” Rodney fumbled for his words, his eyes darting around as though he was still looking for things. “I just… I figured you’d probably put them away but I can’t find them.”

Hands on his hips, John was silent for a moment, staring at Rodney who was staring at him.

“No, I… After… when I told Ronon and Teyla, Ronon offered to…”

Rodney’s expression changed from one of confused disarray to sharp intuition. “To what?” he prodded.

John’s shoulders sagged and he dreaded the words he had to say, but knew he had to say them. “To take them. To the mainland.”

Rodney started pushing himself to his feet and John immediately rushed over to help him, feeling the only thing he was good at lately was monitoring the physical side of Rodney’s recovery. He reached out a hand and Rodney slapped it away hard as he stood.

“You _gave_ her things away?” he asked loudly.

“No!” John shot back quickly. “I didn’t just… she’s …” _gone_ , “… she doesn’t, I mean, she didn’t need them.”

“I need them!” exclaimed Rodney and he pushed at John’s chest solidly with both hands, sending John stumbling backward over the coffee table. He hit his knee at funny angle and he locked it to keep it from buckling. “I can’t believe you just threw her stuff out.”

“No, I didn’t throw it out, I… it went to the Athosians, Rodney. They can use it. They’ll make sure it gets used.”

“Those were things we got for _her_ , things we picked out for her. And you just gave them away,” Rodney said mutinously.

“I didn’t…” Jesus, he was bad at this. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if Rodney was upset about this or about Jamie in general. Even if he’d known the right words to say, getting them out was nearly impossible. “I thought that seeing them… that having them here…” He rubbed the back of his neck savagely. “Fuck, I don’t know, okay? I’m sorry.” He took a step toward Rodney, but when he rested his hand on Rodney’s shoulder, Rodney smacked it away.

“Don’t, Sheppard, just… don’t.” Rodney took a step back and wouldn’t look at him, his entire body strung tight with tension.

The use of his last name stung, but John just nodded and rested his hands on his hips. There was a long drawn out silence while Rodney stared at some imaginary spot off to one side and John couldn’t pull his own gaze from Rodney.

“I’m sorry,” John repeated. “I thought that if you saw… her things,” he managed, “that it would be…” He sighed long and deep, turning his eyes up to the ceiling. “I don’t know. I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Rodney snorted. “Oh, well, then I guess it’s just another thing for my list.”

“What are you talking about? What list?” Even he could hear the defeated note in his voice.

“The ‘I was just doing the right thing’ list,” Rodney said hotly, making air quotes around the words. “The list of things that you do that you shouldn’t and then try to justify it by telling me that it was the right thing to do. Surpassed only in length by the ‘I was doing my job’ list. Although the two lists are by no means mutually exclusive and I’ve a handy Venn diagram for them if you like.”

At that moment, John was tired, feeling every one of his years. “I don’t even know what we’re fighting about. I thought I was doing the right thing and I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry!” His voice got louder as he spoke, raising to a near shout by the end.

“I don’t care. I want her things back!” Rodney yelled.

“Well I can’t get them back!” John countered. He didn’t want to fight but there was something to be said for the release of standing there yelling that made something in him unclench and ease. “What do you want from me?”

“I don’t know!”

The reverberations from Rodney’s voice hung in the silence, and he could hear the sound waves dissipating as they travelled through the air. Rodney’s mouth was a hard slash across his face, his spine stiff.

It was the most they’d said to each other in days.

John had just about given up and was contemplating turning around and going back to their bedroom when Rodney finally spoke.

“Is this what’s going to happen?” Rodney asked, his voice tight.

“What?” asked John.

“Are you just going to...” Rodney waved one of his hands around madly. “Pretend like she was never here?”

 _Jesus, no,_ he thought immediately, but even the suggestion of it made his throat feel painful and taut and he had to swallow a few times before he could answer. “No. That’s not what I… no.”

Rodney crossed his arms tightly over his chest. “Because I don’t want to do that.”

“I’m not asking you to. I don’t want that either.”

“Because we haven’t talked about her since…” Rodney trailed off.

John nodded again. “I know,” he said and then suddenly decided to go for broke. “I don’t what to say to you,” he blurted, stunned by his own honesty. He felt like he was walking on eggshells, waiting for some kind of clue from Rodney. If Rodney would just tell him what to say, tell him what to do to make it better, he would do it.

He just didn’t _know_ what it was.

“I don’t know what to say to you either,” Rodney said, arms falling out of their crossed position and he stepped over to the sofa and fell down into it, wincing sharply and hissing when it jarred his insides too much.

Again, John leapt forward to try to do _something_ , help him sit, grab a pillow, anything, and Rodney batted him away.

“Okay, you know what? That. You can stop doing _that_ ,” Rodney snapped.

John pulled his arms back and they hung limply at his sides. “Okay,” he said quickly.

Rodney sighed, staring at the carpet. “I didn’t.. I didn’t mean… it’s…” John could see the effort it was taking Rodney to force the words out and he tried to be patient. “When you do that, when you get all,” he flapped his hand at John, “clingy and careful… I know you’re trying to help but it doesn’t help and then I feel like an ass for thinking that because I know you’re trying.” He shook his head. “Smartest man in two galaxies and I can’t even explain this right.” He looked up at John, his eyes bright and sharp and pointed at him. “I know you feel like shit and you know I feel like shit.” He dug his finger into his own chest. “But sometimes when you try to help, it makes me feel like I need to try to help you back and Jesus, I don’t think I can help you right now.”

“I don’t expect you to help me back,” John replied quietly.

“No, but, I…” Rodney shook his head.

“I just want to help you. I just want to make it… easier,” John shrugged.

“But you _can’t_. And when you try it’s like this big spotlight on the fact that you can’t. No one can.”

John sat down carefully on the other side of the couch.

“That too,” Rodney said suddenly.

John started, looking down at his lap. “What? I’m just sitting,” he said defensively.

“Yes, _over there_. You… It’s like I have a disease or something. You don’t come near me except to mother me.”

“I’m trying to give you space,” John protested.

“Did I ask for space?”

“You haven’t asked for anything!”

“Well, then stop giving me things I didn’t ask for!”

John felt the frustration coil within him. “Jesus, how I am supposed to know these things? It’s not like you’ve been talking to me either.”

Rodney was silent for a few seconds before he said, “I know.” He stared down at his lap.

John watched as Rodney sat in the corner of the couch, listlessly. He wondered what was going on in that huge brain. What connections Rodney was making, how Rodney was dealing with everything, if he was dealing with it at all.

He just didn’t know how to ask. Didn’t know what to say, to do. If Rodney had been hurt off-world, on a mission, John was the man with the plan. Triage, treat, coordinate retreat or organize return to the gate. Trapped by Wraith? Formulate plan B. Puddlejumper won’t cloak? Run evasive maneuvers. Sold out by mercenaries? Not a problem, he’s got extra ammo.

But this… this was like being trapped in a maze where the wrong turn would lead to getting shocked or poked and there was no right answer.

“I’m tired, John.”

Rodney’s voice barely broke through the dim light. It was hard to hear the defeated note in it, but at least John felt like this was finally something he could respond to.

“Let’s go to bed.”

He stood up and waited quietly while Rodney seemed to gather himself and then finally pushed out of the sofa. He resisted the urge to lean forward and clasp Rodney’s elbow, or steer him to the bedroom. John turned and led the way, trusting, _hoping_ that Rodney would follow him.

He did.

John slid into the now cool sheets and didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he felt the mattress dip under Rodney’s weight as he climbed in. He held himself stock-still for a moment before he tentatively reached out a hand and nudged his knuckle carefully up against Rodney’s hand. It seemed like an agonizingly long time even though it was only a second before Rodney nudged his hand back.

***

Rodney sat at the mess table and more or less pushed his food around on his plate. He’d taken maybe a few bites. It tasted fine and he was hungry but he was still having a hard time chewing the food and forcing it down. Standing in the chow line for food, he’d stared a long time at the pepper like vegetable that’d he snacked on extensively and the mess cook had to call his name a few times before Rodney shook his head and asked if they had any tubers from P23-4R4 instead.

He’d picked a table in a far corner and was mostly isolated from the rest of the mess hall. Absently, he gazed up and saw a table with scientists from xenobiology excitedly discussing something; a table over from that some botanists were likely going crazy over the discovery of a drought resistant grain; another table over and the chemists were probably discussing the latest plastic they’d concocted. Then there were the Marines. Cadman and some of her friends were chatting it up at one table, Rodney noted Lorne and his team sharing lunch and another cluster of men in uniform seemed to be giving each other a hard time about something and thoroughly enjoying it.

He pushed his food around some more. He hadn’t felt like eating but he’d been staring at his computer screen for a solid ten minutes without completing a single equation. Radek had come by and nudged him cautiously, stating that perhaps he should go grab a bite to eat.

It had seemed like it would be more trouble to say no than yes, so Rodney left.

A dark shadow fell over his table and he looked up to see Ronon standing there with a tray. Ronon raised his eyebrow and Rodney gave a half nod toward the empty seat.

“You back at work today?” Ronon asked.

Rodney nodded. “Yeah. Just the labs for now. Carson says I’ll be cleared for gate duty in a week or two.”

Ronon shrugged. “No rush.” He scooped up a forkful of near-potatoes and chewed thoughtfully. “You gonna keep pushing that around or you gonna eat it?”

He scowled at Ronon and shoved a mouthful in just to be contrary.

“Haven’t seen you much since our trip to the mainland. How’ve you been?”

It was Rodney’s turn to shrug. “Fine. I guess.”

“You’re not fine.”

Rodney put his fork down. “What?”

“You. You’re not fine.”

Rodney opened his mouth to protest, but having it stated so plainly, so openly made him pause. “I miss her,” is what came out instead. He picked up his fork and tapped the tines against his plate.

Ronon nodded. “You had her for almost four months. Thought about her every day for two. Long time to think about someone.”

Rodney glanced around but there was no one near close enough to hear them talking in their hushed tones.

“I looked up some stuff, on the server, and Carson had these… brochures, for God’s sake, and you know what people say? They say, ‘you can have another one.’” Rodney’s lips thinned. “Well, I can’t. And even if I could, I can’t just… replace her. Like she could just be swapped out for someone else and I wouldn’t notice.”

“People want to say something. They think that will help, I guess.”

“Well it doesn’t,” Rodney said hotly, picking up his fork and forcing some food on it. “It’s completely asinine and thank god I’m not a woman because if I were, I probably would have _told_ people I was… I was…” he took a deep breath. “And then they’d be spouting off at me now how ‘these things happen’ or that I could ‘have another one’ or that it was ‘meant to be’ and then I’d have to create charts and diagrams to illustrate how moronic they all are.”

Ronon chewed his food, not saying anything while Rodney ranted, his voice low and harsh. It was somehow easy to talk to Ronon, or talk _at_ Ronon as the case may be. Maybe it was because he never really seemed surprised by what you had to say. Sitting there with him, Rodney felt almost at east, relaxed in his grief in a way he couldn’t be around John. Knowing that John was grieving too, Rodney felt like he had to censor his feelings in some way, not express them fully or dull them somehow.

But with Ronon - strong, silent, stoic Ronon, Rodney felt almost liberated. He could _say_ things to Ronon and Ronon wouldn’t judge him or be pulled down by Rodney’s grief or anger. Ronon would just _let him be_. He wouldn’t try to fix it or mitigate it. It was liberating.

“Those fucking Ancients,” Rodney continued. “Leaving their insane experiments and technology around without so much as a ‘don’t touch this or else’ sign on it or at very least some kind of ‘touch this and your life will change’ warning. Who did they think they were? Mucking around in science and the universe, creating machines that suck you into parallel universes, or blow up solar systems or create the fucking _Wraith_ for god’s sake!” Rodney took a breath. “I used to just be annoyed by them or at the worst, be mildly angry but now… now I’m so fucking furious that if I ever meet another one, I’m… I’m going to…” he exhaled sharply. “How dare they give me something I never even knew I wanted just to take it back?”

“They were wrong,” Ronon said simply.

“You’re damn right they were wrong,” Rodney answered, taking a big bite of food. “Playing around in the dirt, not caring about the consequences of their actions.”

Ronon made some kind of sound of agreement and Rodney huffed as he ate the rest of his meal. He was surprised when he realized his plate was now empty and he didn’t have the burning, half empty stomach feeling that’d had been plaguing him for a few days.

Ronon reached into one of his pockets and pulled something out, placing it on the table next to Rodney’s plate.

“Made you this. On Sateda, when someone dies, people make keepsakes to remember them by. Small things that can be easily picked up and taken when you move or when the Wraith show up.”

Rodney picked it up carefully. It was a small, wooden oval with a carving of a vine-type plant with several large and some small leaves branching off, intertwined with some swirls. No bigger than a hotel bar of soap, it was light and thin, but sturdy, solid.

“It’s small enough that you could keep it with you, if you want. That plant only grew in a few places on Sateda and was popular for its scent. Kind of smells like a mixture of your lavender and something the cooks use a lot, rosemary I think it is.”

Rodney stared down at it and rubbed his thumb over the intricate work. The carving lines were small, delicate.

“It’s beautiful. This is… This must have… Thank you.”

“You guys would have made good parents.”

“I like to think so,” Rodney added, his voice barely audible.

***

In the dream, he was in the infirmary only it had windows and it looked out onto the snowy plains of Siberia.

Rodney didn’t remember having the baby, but he must have because people kept coming into the infirmary and telling him congratulations.

He finally looked down to see he was holding a bundle in his arms, but when he unwrapped the blanket a little, he couldn’t make out a face. Just long, impossibly skinny arms.

He was afraid to unwrap the blanket anymore.

He tried to tell Carson there was something wrong with the baby but Carson just smiled and patted him on the shoulder and said that he was being ridiculous and it was all fine.

John came by, all smiles and he tried to tell John that something was wrong. He tried to pass him the baby, but John refused and said Rodney should keep the baby so that it could hear his heartbeat and know Rodney was close by. Rodney told him that the baby was dead and John frowned and said that was a horrible thing to say and Rodney must be very tired.

He wandered around Atlantis trying to get someone to listen to him but they all ignored his protests and smiled, congratulating him, telling him how lucky he was, how happy they were for him, how nothing was wrong.

He was the only one who knew, who realized what had happened.

His feet were cold on the bare floor and so he slid down the wall and wondered what he would do with the baby if no one would believe him.

Rodney woke up.

He slid quietly out of bed and padded softly to the bathroom, closing the door before he turned on the light. He squinted at the brightness and turned the water on, just to hear something other than the blood rushing through his ears.

He knew that if he went back to bed, he’d fall asleep and he had the irrational fear that the dream was waiting for him; hovering somehow in subspace and as soon as his brainwaves slipped into the right rhythm it would piggy-back into his subconscious.

He turned the shower on and stripped off his boxers and tee-shirt. The stitches had dissolved but the line they left on his stomach was still angry and tender. It was such a small incision. As much as he berated Carson, gave him and his voodoo science a hard time, he really was astounded at what the doctor could accomplish. The skin was tight. From unfortunate past experience he knew that it would be a while before it all evened out and then in a few years, he’d barely notice the scar at all.

It wasn’t just the scar that hurt, his insides felt… messed with. Like each part of his torso was unhappy and slighted by the intrusion, by Carson pushing and prodding things around, and it was more than willing to let him know about it.

He stuck a hand under the spray and deeming it hot enough he got in and let the water run over his back and neck. He closed his eyes under the spray and tried to concentrate on the feeling of the water and not his thoughts.

He wasn’t sure how long he stayed in there but he felt puffy and swollen by the time he decided to get out. His ratty bath robe was placed neatly on the counter, along with a change of clothes and the little tube of vitamin e cream that Carson said would help with the scar.

He must have woken John.

He dabbed the soothing cream on his scar, finding some strange comfort in the sharp tea tree oil smell. He was reluctant to leave the warm cocoon of the steamy bathroom and make his barefoot way across the room back to bed, but there was no avoiding it.

The room was blindly dark after the brightness of the bathroom and he didn’t so much see his way to the bed as he just knew it from memory. He could tell John was awake from the pattern of his breathing but he didn’t say anything as Rodney climbed into bed.

“Thanks,” Rodney said quietly as he slid back into bed.

“Bad dream?” asked John, not pretending to be asleep.

“Yeah.”

There was a pause as John turned toward him in the dark. “Wanna talk about it?”

He opened his mouth to say ‘no’ but what came out instead was, “She would have had your hair.”

“And your eyes,” John answered immediately.

***

John had been awake most of the night. Rodney had finally fallen back asleep without telling him what his dream was about.

John didn’t ask.

Lying there, on his back, hands folded over his stomach, staring at the ceiling, John came to a decision.

He didn’t have to look over to know Rodney was awake, he could tell by the way Rodney shifted, by the way he was more active, breathing shallower, that he was awake.

“I think,” John said carefully, “that we should go to Earth.”

John heard the rustle of sheets as Rodney turned over onto his side to face him.

“What? Why?”

“I think… being here… is bad right now.”

“Jesus, don’t hurt yourself trying to be emotive. You might damage something permanently.” Rodney’s tone had a bite to it and John didn’t need to look over to know Rodney was wearing a tight, angry expression.

It was kind of like running special ops. All John kept thinking was _Do not engage, do not engage_. Rodney, tired of waiting for a sarcastic bite back to his comment finally sighed.

“Are you bored? Is that what this is about? Because I’m one week away from being cleared for milk runs and then we can go off-world.”

John unlaced his fingers and then laced them back, reversing the top knuckle. “Rodney, if we go on missions, even milk runs with the way we are now… We’re gonna get people killed. Ourselves most likely.”

It was gratifying and relieving that Rodney didn’t fight him immediately about it. He finally screwed his courage to the sticking plate and turned his head slightly to look at Rodney’s profile. He too was staring up at the ceiling, lips closed, jaw firm.

“And you think going away is going to help?”

Rodney couldn't see his shrug, but he could probably feel the mattress move as John’s shoulder did.

“I don’t see how it could make things worse.”

John felt the hum of the air temperature controllers as they kicked into their morning cycle, heating the room slightly in preparation for the normal waking time of its occupants.

“Did you have any place in mind?” Rodney’s voice was cautious.

John shook his head slightly on the pillow. “Nope.”

“It might be… I mean, it’s just a suggestion, but maybe we could stop off and see Jeannie?”

“Sure. Maybe a few nights at a hotel, few days with her. If she’ll have us,” John added with a rueful smile.

Rodney took in a deep breath. “Okay. Radek should be okay. He’s been completely charge for the last week anyway, and even before… before, he was taking on more of my duties.”

“Okay,” John echoed. “I’ll clear it with Woolsey. See if we can gate home.”

Rodney snorted. “Yeah, because two weeks on the _Daedalus_ does not my ideal vacation make.”

***

Woolsey was more than happy to give them the time off and if John had to stay in his office, confronted by the man’s hang dog face and well-meaning but awkward attempts at comfort any longer, he was going to shoot someone in the foot.

Less than a day later, they stepped through the gate into the Cheyenne Mountain complex. Walter had them checked back into SGC and shuttled off to the infirmary before they’d barely had a chance to take a breath. Dr. Lam did only the barest of an examination, doing only what was absolutely necessary to ensure no contagions or alien infestations made it through, stating plainly that Carson had sent over their latest medical records and she was completely up to date with their histories.

Rodney tried not to notice the overly sympathetic look in her eyes when she said it. John managed a nod and a tight smile.

Sam stopped by to ask after Atlantis and the people there, even though she must stay ridiculously up to date with the data bursts and reports. She must have sensed something was off when she asked Rodney to take a look at her latest designs for a re-calibrated naquada generator and he waved her off vaguely saying she could email it to him and he’d take a look.

A few short hours later, they were sitting silently in an government issued rental car, heading toward the nearest airport.

“Soooo,” John drawled. “Vancouver first or do you want to go somewhere else for a few days?”

Rodney shrugged. “Either is fine.”

John’s jaw tightened. This ‘routine’ of neither of them ‘caring’ about anything was worn thin and grated on his nerves. It was easier to make decisions when they were arguing about things then it was when both of them just acquiesced to anything. Or nothing.

“What do you _want_ to do?” John managed to grind out.

Rodney sighed. “It doesn’t matter to me,” he snapped.

“Well, something has got to start to matter because this is not working.”

“Jesus, you the one that wanted to come to Earth! You pick!” Rodney’s voice filled the small car, bouncing off the windows.

“Fine!” John shouted back. “We’re going to Aspen for a week and then we’re going to go see Jeannie.”

“Fine.”

He couldn't say where his decision had come from, only that a decision had to be made and he just needed to be _doing_ something. He twisted the key in the ignition cruelly, the engine block letting out a harsh protest sound at the treatment.

The car was silent as he drove, his hands gripping the wheel harshly. Maybe this had been the worst idea he’d ever had. Maybe they should have stayed on Atlantis where their jobs were a buffer between them. They each had things to do, places to be, people to have meetings with and really, only had to sleep next to each other at night. Even that could be avoided by shifting their schedules slightly.

Now there was nothing between them.

And everything.

The drive didn’t take long and John couldn’t help but wish it had taken longer. They got into Aspen just over four hours after they left Cheyenne. John turned in to one of the first hotels they passed and booked a room while Rodney stayed in the car. John stood with the room keys in hand staring at the brochure display looking for something, anything for them to do. Pictures of red-cheeked happy people stared back at him. Hiking, skiing, scenic drives… he turned his head and stared out the front window of the hotel at the car. He could just make out Rodney fishing around in a bag for something. He looked back at the brochures.

There was no maybe about it. This was the worst idea he’d ever had. He took a deep breath and gritted his teeth together, heading back to the car.

***

The only thing different, Rodney thought, about being in a hotel room in Aspen with John versus being in Atlantis with John was that the movies were newer in Aspen.

They’d unpacked as much as you can in a hotel room. Placing things in drawers and setting out their shaving things and toothbrushes.

It had taken about ten minutes.

He looked over and saw John flipping through the room service menu. Rodney’d had breakfast on Atlantis, before they gated back to earth, and they’d stopped for lunch on the road, grabbing sandwiches and sodas from a gas station.

It hit him then that those sandwiches, eaten in the car, were the first meal he could remember sharing with John since they’d lost Jamie except for when Teyla and Ronon took them to the mainland. John had taken to running seven days a week instead of his normal four and Rodney usually ate and got ready while he was gone. Rodney had been off duty for a few days but Teyla or Ronon would usually stop by and take him to lunch. Dinner was usually in the mess with Zelenka catching Rodney up on the goings on. Then Rodney had been put back on light duty and took to eating a few meals a week in the lab.

He couldn’t remember the last time they’d actually sat down together and had a meal.

As if finally feeling Rodney’s eyes on him, John looked up and raised an eyebrow.

“Anything, um.” Rodney cleared his throat. “Anything look good?” he asked.

John paused as if the question surprised him and looked back down. “Yeah. They’ve got a pretty full menu.” John snapped the small plastic binder shut and held it out for Rodney. Their fingers touched as he took it from John and they both started slightly. He hastily flipped it open and tried to read the menu, the words and letters swimming in front of him.

He had this feeling like he was drifting away, aimlessly and no direction. His brain traitorously supplied an image of an astronaut in a space suit with the long, securing tether unhooked and trailing loosely away.

Newton’s first law came immediately to his mind then, and he could see it now, how he had set himself in motion, set himself drifting away from John, how they were both drifting away from each other and unless acted upon, they would continue down their set paths. Jamie had been their third data point, the three of them gravitating and rotating around each other. She’d changed their orbits, their paths and when she’d… when they lost her… Their paths were already altered, no longer in a stable system of two, they’d been an unstable system of three, with no general solution and now…

“Three body problem,” he blurted suddenly looking up at John.

John frowned at him. “What?”

“I… it’s… and Newton… and unless things are compelled to change, they keep going.”

It was so perfectly obvious to him now. What John was trying to say in the car, why he’d suggested they take a vacation. Maybe John already knew, or maybe he just had a better instinct for it than Rodney did. Rodney wasn’t known for being good with people, for having a high emotional quotient, but what he knew instinctually was physics. Strip away all the emotions and feelings and he could see the physics of the situation, the physics of _them_ and if something didn’t happen, if nothing changed…

He put the binder down. “We should go out. For dinner,” he said quickly. “We should shower, get dressed and go out.”

John blinked at him twice, looked down at his watch. “Uh, okay. If that’s what you want.”

Rodney nodded firmly. “Yes. It’s… yes. Right. I’m going to,” he gestured to the bathroom and then pointed ridiculously at himself and then got up.

John waved a hand at him. “Go ahead, I’ll just, uh, watch some TV and then, you know, take my turn.”

He showered quickly, feeling a little nervous and strange. What if he was wrong and they weren’t so much drifting away from each as just… broken apart. Like pieces of a shattered mug that never really went back together because some obscure shard was ground to dust and unable to be repaired. What if they would have eventually split up anyway and losing Jamie was only the catalyst to it happening sooner rather than later? It seemed incredulous to him that something he could have never planned on happening, something that pretty much went against the regular laws of nature, could be the thing that pulled them apart. They could have never predicted it prepared for it, and it would never happen again.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and had to make himself leave the bathroom. John looked up at him expectantly and rolled off the bed and to his feet with easy grace and Rodney stopped and stared at him. He’d forgotten how beautifully John’s body moved. All his muscles at his command, his lithe strength and flexibility.

Einstein was right, time was not uniform and absolute. It seemed as though in that moment, Rodney could see the line of time and this instant, this point, a nodule on that line, branching out into an infinite number of events, each one having another infinite number of events leading off from it.

There would be other moments, other nodes where it could all change, but this was the one he was in right now. He could see himself, in an alternative timeline, letting John pass by him and in another, he said something cruel and cutting and in another, he looked away and in another he stayed longer in the bathroom and another and another…

In this timeline, this moment, he saw John’s eyebrows come together and he paused in front of Rodney.

“Are you okay?”

Rodney studied him. The flecks of his irises, the tired, worn lines of crows-feet, the dark bruises of color circling his eyes. Rodney leaned forward slightly, jerked to a stop and then crushed his mouth to John’s, teeth clacking hard and a little painful.

John’s lips were still under his for a second, like he wasn’t quite sure what to do as Rodney kissed him and then he tentatively kissed back.

It was like they were out of synch or alignment. John tried to encircle Rodney with his arms at the same time that Rodney tried to move him back toward the bed. Their hands hit at awkward places and they tripped over their own and then each other’s feet. Rodney lost the towel around his waist and his dick, not at all hard at the moment, chafed painfully against John’s jeans.

They fell on the bed and John cracked the back of his skull on the wooden headboard and bit out a sharp, loud curse. Rodney fumbled with John’s waist band as John tried to flip them over to get on top of Rodney.

John got them flipped and settled in between Rodney’s legs. Rodney finally got John’s pants open and pushed them, and his boxers, down just far enough so that their groins could line up skin on skin. John gave a low grunt as their pelvises aligned and Rodney finally felt his dick start to take an interest in the proceedings. Their kisses were sloppy and messy and Rodney hadn’t been this uncoordinated at sex since he was fifteen and trying to think of physics problems and mathematical series to keep from coming before he’d even gotten his pants off. John’s t-shirt was soft against his damp chest and Rodney snaked his hands underneath the material and yanked it up. John, braced on his hands, faltered and as he tried to fight his way out of his shirt, he clipped Rodney’s chin and Rodney’s teeth came down on his own tongue and he grunted in pain. John’s mouth was back on his then and he could taste John over the copper-salt sting of his own blood.

John was rocking against him hard and the comforter was scratchy underneath Rodney’s back. He clutched at John and tried to only think about him, only hear the sounds they were making, the noise of the bed creaking slightly. He could feel he was close, so close, so quickly but it was just out of reach, just beyond him and he felt frustrated and angry, needy and desperate.

He could feel the slickness of John’s pre-come in the crease of his hip, he could tell John was close too. He wrapped one leg as much as he could around John’s waist and used it to press him closer. John pulled his lips away, and Rodney heard John’s breath hitch and his hips stuttered as he came against Rodney’s hip and groin. A frustrated sound ground its way out of Rodney’s throat and he didn’t even realize he was chanting, ‘I can’t, I can’t,’ until he heard John shushing him and telling him, ‘you’re fine, I’ve got you.’

He came and it was more of a relief than anything else. John twisted his hips and collapsed to the side of Rodney, his pants and boxers still twisted strangely around his knees. He kicked and shimmied until his feet were free. Rodney stared at the ceiling and listened to the sound of John’s breathing slowing down beside him.

He felt like an old washcloth, worn and twisted up, but also, somehow lighter.

“That was quite possibly the worst sex I’ve ever had,” he finally said.

John let out sound that was a kind of cross between a sob and a laugh. Rodney slowly turned his head and found John staring at him.

“I think I almost got knocked unconscious,” John said and as he raised his hand to his head, Rodney batted it away and checked the back of John’s skull himself, finding a small knot forming where he struck the headboard. John winced slightly as Rodney probed it with his fingertips.

“No blood,” he said. “Wish I could say the same for my tongue.” He moved his tongue around in his mouth, the bitten spot feeling huge and sore. John surged forward and kissed him hard, sucking on his sore tongue.

“That’s so unsanitary,” Rodney complained when John pulled away. “You may as well just be sucking on a wound.”

“I’ve sucked your dick, I hardly think a little of your blood is gonna gross me out.” John flopped bonelessly back onto the pillow, one of his hands draped carelessly across Rodney’s upper thigh. His fingers drew random, obscure lines and circles on the skin and hair. Rodney listened to the hum of the air conditioning kicking in and the sounds of the water pipes of the floor above them.

“Let’s get room service instead.”

“You don’t wanna go out?” John asked.

Rodney rubbed at his eyes. “No. I just…” He placed his hand carefully on top of John’s and John grabbed onto his fingers tight. “I want to stay here.” He turned back toward John. “Let’s just stay here.”

John’s lips quirked in a bare ghost of a smile. “Okay.”

***

They cleaned up a little, sharing a shower in a comfortable, easy way that wasn’t at all sexual but more about familiarity and expedience. John ordered room service while Rodney grumbled about Hollywood not making anything good lately as he flipped through the movie brochure and tried to find something good on pay-per-view. He finally gave up and hauled out his laptop, busily clicking away.

“What are we watching?” John asked, trying to peer over Rodney’s shoulder.

Rodney hunched over the laptop. “You can wait till the food gets here.” He looked down at his laptop, eyebrows furrowed and then made his snappy-grabby hands at John. “Bag.”

John smirked and tossed Rodney his laptop bag, watching as he rooted around in it. Seconds later, Rodney pulled out a bunch of cables and scuttled over to the TV.

By the time the food arrived, Rodney had jacked his laptop into the hotel TV and was loading the movie.

John smiled as he saw the opening credits to ‘Escape from New York’ on the screen. He settled down on the bed, balancing his clubhouse sandwich and fries while he cracked open two beers. Rodney crawled up beside him, grabbing his own plate of baked lasagna and took the offered beer.

“They never should have made a sequel,” John said.

“There's a lot of things Hollywood shouldn’t do, and at the top of that list is anything that involves thinking.”

They watched the movie and while they didn’t quite have the easy banter and camaraderie they used to, it was still more relaxed and not as forced as the last couple of weeks. Rodney set up ‘The Fog’ as soon as the first movie was over and then ‘The Thing’ after that. By the time Kurt Russell and his arctic expedition were surrounded by flames, they were slouched all the way down on the bed, their heads barely propped up by the pillows.

But they were tilted toward each other, their sides smushed together from their shoulders to their ankles. John flicked his eyes to Rodney’s profile and then to his duffle bag, sitting next to the dresser on the floor.

He’d been been clearing out his locker, back on Atlantis, making sure there weren’t any leftover half-open power bars or gear that needed cleaning before they went on leave when he’d found the baby carrier and tiny boots that he and Ronon had purchased at the market.

He stood there and stared at them for a long, long time before bundling them up and then tossing them in his duffle for their trip to Earth.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with them, only that Rodney had been so… angry when he found out that John had asked Ronon and Teyla to take Jamie’s things, to give them to the Athosians who could make use of them. He had some vague thought about maybe leaving them for Rodney or maybe giving them away too, letting sleeping dogs lie.

At any rate, they were still there, in his duffle, buried beneath t-shirts, jeans and socks. Rodney also complained that John never talked about Jamie but the truth was, neither of them really did. They talked _around_ her, talked around what happened. It was a huge, hulking elephant that followed them around wherever they went and neither one of them knew how to address it.

It had been John’s idea to take a break from Atlantis, knowing they needed _something_ but not knowing what. But it had been Rodney that had plunged forward tonight, awkwardly, suddenly.

It had definitely been the worst sex they’d ever had, but at the same time, they’d never needed the connection as much.

John kind of felt like he needed to keep the momentum of it going.

He rolled out of bed, feeling Rodney’s sleepy eyes on him as he stepped over to the duffle bag and pulled out the snuggly blanket and knitted boots. He paused on the way back, standing next to the bed, unsure. Rodney pushed himself up to a seated position and stared back at him.

“I, uh, I bought these.” He more-or-less shoved the bundle at Rodney who took it with a confused look. His expression saddened as he unfolded them and realized what they were.

“When?” he asked, fingering the material.

“At the market. Before. I mean, obviously, before. They were in my locker, I forgot I had them.”

Rodney turned the carrier over in his hands, and John could see the moment his brain figured out how it worked.

John carefully, so carefully, sat back down on the bed, the mattress hardly moving at all under his weight. Rodney was turning the boots over and over in his hands.

“I didn’t just _give_ her stuff away,” John added quickly.

Rodney cleared his throat. “No, I… I know. I didn’t… I mean, I know why you did it. I just wasn’t… it seemed so final. Like that was it. She was gone and there were no traces she’d been here.” He put a bootie on each of his pointer fingers and sort of ‘kicked’ them around. His lips twitched in a sad, small smile. “They’re so small.”

John didn’t say anything, just watched Rodney’s fingers move up and down and then pause only to start up again.

“She…” John started suddenly and then swallowed. “She would have been smart, like you.”

“Like _us_. You’re smart too.”

“Not as smart as you.”

“Of course not,” Rodney said quickly and John laughed. “I mean, no one is,” Rodney clarified and John wanted to laugh again at Rodney’s attempt to make him feel better. “Except… she would have been.”

“Yeah.”

“But… I, I mean, when I thought about her, I always imagined her more like you,” Rodney said.

John felt his heart stutter a bit. “Me?” he repeated stupidly.

Rodney nodded, his eyes downcast still staring at the little boots. “Yeah. She… she would have… people like you and they want to be around you and you make them feel at ease and…” Rodney pulled the boots off his fingers and set them down on the bed, smoothing the fabric. “She would have been like that.”

He didn’t know what to say so instead he leaned forward and kissed Rodney, hard and bruising on the lips.

When he finally pulled away he looked into Rodney’s eyes, the pale blue made grayer by the low light still coming from the TV.

“I still think she would have had your eyes,” John murmured.

“And your ridiculous hair.”

***

It felt to Rodney, after that, like everything relaxed. He didn’t realize it until some of the tension had been drawn away, but everything up until last night felt like an overfilled balloon - tight, thin, in danger of popping at any moment and all you could do wait for any slight imperfection on the surface to give way under the pressure.

Now, it felt like there was at least some give.

They’d found a small bookstore the next day and Rodney stocked up on Isaac Asimov and Piers Anthony.

“I’m still working on War and Peace,” John said, when Rodney asked him what he was getting.

Rodney rolled his eyes. “Everyone dies. The end.” He tried to shove a stack of books into John’s arms. “It’s supposed to be a vacation. Reading that is work. Bo-ring,” he singsonged.

It was something he’d done a million times before, but they both paused, Rodney in the midst of flipping through another book and John just about to toss out his empty coffee cup so he could juggle the books. They both knew the other was remembering Rodney saying the same thing to John only weeks earlier, when they still had Jamie.

Rodney’s lips twitched slightly and he cleared his throat. “So,” he continued on, “you should pick up some other books. Because, uh… vacation,” he finished lamely.

“What was that song?” John asked.

“What?”

“That song, that you were playing her, when I came in that day. What was it?”

Rodney swallowed. “That was, uh, Prelude and Fugue in E minor. Bach. A fugue is written with certain rules, with recurring patterns and imitations. Some say it’s not music, but rather technical composition.”

John smiled at the explanation. “Smart music.”

Rodney’s lips twitched. “Well of course. It had to be for her.”

John nodded vaguely and then looked down at the books Rodney was buying. “Are you really going to read all seven books in this series?”

“I’m a very fast reader! I’ve a high level of comprehension.”

“It’s not a competition, McKay.”

“It is. And everyone else is losing.”

Neither one of them is sure who started it but each night, only after they’d decided to go to sleep and only after the lights were off, they’d plan out the life they didn’t get to have.

 _She could have gone to MIT._

 _As if I’d let those idiots teach her a thing. As if they could._

 _She’d have to be socialized somewhere._

 _That’s what she’d have you for. But if she wanted to go, I mean, if she really wanted to, then fine, I guess. She would make the professors cry._

 _By threatening them with her dad coming to campus?_

 _By blinding them with science!_

Sometimes they stayed on Atlantis, sometimes they left. Sometimes they moved to Canada, sometimes the States, sometimes someplace more exotic.

If they stayed on Atlantis, they would take her to the mainland for swimming lessons and she would learn bantos from Teyla. Ronon would teach her Sateda dancing. She would alternatively go running with John in the mornings or be a lab rat with Rodney all day learning new gadgets. She of course had the gene and ancient tech loved her more than it loved John. Atlantis would light up for her at will. Radek would teach her how to curse in Czech on the sly and she would pinky swear with him never to tell anyone. Lorne would filch extra sweets from the mess hall and get her riled up on sugar. Carson would boast that he was the one that delivered that fine lass into the world and was the first to hold her, which would make Rodney scowl. Everyone on Atlantis would dote on her but she would never act spoiled. She would read Ancient as well as she read English and one day when Rodney was working, she would lean over and say something casually and it would end up leading to the solution to how to make a ZPM.

Or they would move back to Earth, close to Jeannie and Madison would babysit once she was old enough. John and Rodney could go out on dates and come home and find the kitchen a mess from the milkshakes Madison would make. Madison would teach John and Rodney separately, on the sly, how to braid hair and make pig tails the same size and shape. They’d live somewhere where they could stable a horse and John would teach her to ride and Rodney would watch them both from the corral and make horrendous protests when John would make him get in the saddle with her. She would take music lessons, learn four instruments and be a virtuoso with more skill in her pinky finger than any other child her age. She would eventually grow up to play at Carnegie Hall.

Or she would be really athletic and play soccer. She would be so cool about the fact that she had two dads and all her friends would come over and Rodney would rant during sleepovers that he couldn’t sleep with all the giggling and screeching coming from the basement and when he stormed downstairs to tell her to keep it down, she would be horrified and so embarrassed and with Rodney’s fair skin, would turn red all over. John would yell at her when she showed up late from curfew and she’d be grounded for weeks.

They would get a dog and two cats. The dog would get fat because no one walked it even though Jamie swore up and down on a stack of bibles she would. The cats were alternatively named after scientists, mathematicians, food or just Kit and Kat.

The dog was always named Rufus.

The game always ended with them eventually drifting asleep, a little melancholy. Sometimes Rodney ended up with his head on John’s chest, loving the way his voice rumbled deeper with his head so close. Or John would thread his fingers through Rodney’s and keep rubbing his thumb over the same spot over and over, like a talisman. Or they ended up spooned with Rodney speaking quietly into John’s ear while John tucked his chin to his chest.

Two things never changed. She always had John’s hair and Rodney’s eyes.

***

Their week in Aspen was low key and relaxed. They ate room service in their room for breakfast each morning, lazing about. John could have gone running. Rodney could have slept in. But instead they both gave it their best and sat down with one another at the small table and had light conversation over eggs, toast and coffee.

Really bad coffee, according to Rodney. It was in fact, the worst coffee Rodney had ever hard and that included Russia. Each morning he had a new insult for it as he drank and John snorted over his plate as Rodney claimed that they must be brewing it through moldy socks or that they used dishwater or that it wasn’t even coffee but ground up glass, rocks and silt.

In truth, it really wasn’t that bad, but Rodney enjoyed making John laugh so hard that he almost snorted out some scrambled egg so he would spend the day thinking of the next morning’s insult.

They went for a few walks around town, a few scenic drives in the car, John persuaded Rodney to go to a driving range and at night Rodney would point out various constellations and once, the space station.

They were both a little sorry to leave the hotel at the end of the week. While John checked them out, Rodney took one last look around the small room, checking for any stray socks or toothbrushes and closed the door with a soft click.

The flight to Vancouver was uneventful and Rodney was surprised to see Jeannie standing by the luggage carousel when they landed. He turned to look quickly at John who shrugged and mentioned that he might have sent their flight details by email but that he hadn’t expected anyone to come out and meet them. Jeannie rolled her eyes, a perfect McKay gesture and said she wasn’t about to let them rent a car or god forbid take the train.

She had them hustled out of the airport and into her minivan in minutes, deftly moving in and out of traffic, keeping up a steady stream of chatter regarding Kaleb, Madison, her latest work on the replicator code (which erupted into McKay vs. McKay and honestly, John wasn’t sure what they were disagreeing on until the end, when it seemed suddenly that they _weren’t_ disagreeing so much as approaching the same conclusion from wildly different angles).

John shifted in the back seat, grimacing as something dug into his left butt cheek. Reaching into the seat, he fumbled around and pulled out a small doll, her green plastic-cast dress barely hanging on. He frowned at it and tucked it in his pocket.

When they arrived at the Miller house, Madison bounding up to see them, he offhandedly reached into his jacket and pulled it out, handing it to Madison who squealed like a banshee and clutched at John’s legs tightly, thanking him profusely for finding her lost Polly Pocket and swearing up and down that he was her favoritest uncle ever.

Rodney exclaimed that John didn’t even share her DNA and Rodney had a new book for Madison and wouldn’t she like that better than a doll? With shrewd eyes, Madison declared that it depended on the book and when she saw the astronomy textbook Rodney had her eyes lit up. She stuffed her tiny doll into her pocket, proclaimed them both her favoritest uncles and demanded they both sit next to her for dinner.

Dinner was a low-key affair. Jeannie brought out two main dishes, one vegetarian and one meat and Rodney didn’t so much as scowl or give her the evil eye when she explained what was in the vegetarian one. She eyeballed Rodney carefully, her eyes darting over quickly to John to gage his reaction to Rodney’s non-reaction and then back again to her brother.

Madison actually kept the conversation going, telling Rodney and John all about her dance and piano lessons, her after school program for smart kids, her best friends and how she was going to get a dog for Christmas.

At which point Jeannie said they were most certainly not getting a dog, but a fish might be a possibility. Madison frowned at her mother, her lips curving downward on one side just like Rodney’s. John’s stomach clenched for a moment and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Rodney watching Madison with an almost naked expression on his face. Across the table, John could see Jeannie zero in on Rodney’s expression as well. Madison, oblivious, continued on that a fish was okay, she guessed, but she didn’t want one of the clown fishes like all her friends had.

John reached under the table and squeezed Rodney’s knee gently while he told Madison that she might like betta fish. It seemed to get Rodney’s attention because he cleared his throat and added that betta fish came in lots of colors and he was sure she would find one she liked.

After dessert, Madison asked if John and Rodney would like to come up to her room and see her entire Polly Pocket collection. John’s eyebrows must have said it all because Kaleb told Maddie that her uncles were probably tired from their trip and it was too close to her bed time anyway. After extracting an unbreakable promise to see the entire collection tomorrow and to watch a movie with them, Madison finally relented and went to bed.

They sat around the kitchen table for another two hours, drinking decaf coffee, the conversation running from how things were on Atlantis, to Kaleb’s promotion, to Madison’s bout with the chicken pox, to John and Rodney’s vacation on Earth to Jeannie’s casual consulting work with the SGC. When Rodney yawned huge and loud, not bothering with even a half-hearted pretense of covering it up, John decided it was time to call it a night. Although they knew exactly where the guest room was, Jeannie still led them up the stairs and down the hall, gesturing to the door somewhat hesitantly, trying to catch John’s eye. He managed to give her what he hoped was a reassuring nod, watching as she pressed her lips together and nodded back.

Rodney stripped down to his boxers and shimmied into a t-shirt in record time, leaving John to unpack a few things from their suitcases and setting aside their laundry bag in the hopes that Jeannie wouldn’t mind if they shamelessly abused her washing machine for a day. He finally slid into bed next to Rodney, clad in worn sweatpants and an even older shirt. Rodney nudged insistently at him, giving him a push to roll over, and then spooned up behind him when he did, one arm slinging over John’s waist.

“Dinner was good,” John said quietly.

Rodney huffed against the back of John’s neck. “She should be charging the SGC double for the consulting she does,” Rodney mumbled, his lips grazing the fine hairs at John’s hairline. “I should talk to Carter.”

John smiled. He’d wondered how long it would take Rodney to tell him that, having seen Rodney’s face after dinner when Jeannie explained the work she was doing. “Pretty sure Jeannie’d be completely non-thrilled by that.”

“Hmmm,” Rodney murmured, already starting to drift to sleep. “S’good idea to come here.”

His arm tightened slightly around John’s waist before relaxing.

“Yeah,” breathed John, eyes closing. Thinking about how they were before they left Atlantis, he could easily imagine it getting much worse before it got better, if at all, if they had stayed where they were, circling each other like wary dogs. Now, it felt like they’d turned the corner. “I’m glad we came too.”

***

Rodney yawned as he stumbled into the kitchen and saw Jeannie already sitting at the kitchen table. With a half-hearted wave that was more of a hand flap, he grunted at her and headed straight for the coffee pot.

Jeannie sipped from her mug. “You’re up early.”

“Astounding observation,” Rodney mumbled as he grabbed the empty pot and waved it at her. “Why doesn’t this have coffee in it?” he demanded and then started filling it up with water to make a pot.

Jeannie smiled and waved her own mug back. “Green tea,” she said smugly.

“Drink of the hellhounds. It all smells like boiled weeds. Oh wait, that’s because it _is_ boiled weeds.” He worked on grinding the beans and once it was all ready, stood back and watched it start to drip into the pot.

Jeannie laughed. “Are you gonna stand there and stare at it like that?”

“Only until the first cup is ready,” Rodney answered not looking over at her.

“Sit down, Mer.”

Rodney took a mug from the cupboard and brought it over to the table with him, clutching the empty ceramic to his chest. “Where’s Kaleb?” he asked around another yawn.

“Doesn’t have class until eleven.” She ignored Rodney’s mumblings about lazy professors and their lack of a work ethic. “John?” she asked.

“He prefers to get his torture session done early in the morning,” Rodney replied, squinting at the kitchen window. “Jesus, it’s not even light outside. Who wants to run in the cold? And the dark? And did I mention the cold?” He gave a shudder.

“This is the first time we’ve actually been alone since you got here,” Jeannie said.

Rodney rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Yeah?” he said noncommittally. “S’only been a couple of days.”

“Hey, listen, I have news,” Jeannie began, reaching out and placing her hand on his arm. Rodney stared down at it, blinking and then up at her. “You’re going to be an uncle,” she said smiling.

“I’m already an uncle,” he answered back stupidly.

She rolled her eyes. “No, idiot. I mean you’re going to be an uncle again. I’m pregnant.”

Rodney stilled. “What?” he asked quietly.

“Pregnant,” she repeated with a smile. “We’re having another baby.” She watched him with expectant eyes. He just sat there blinking and then he swallowed.

“Uh, when?”

“July. Well, end of July. Ugh, I’m not looking forward to being pregnant in the summer. I was so hot in the last few weeks with Madison I made Kaleb keep all the windows open and it was November, so I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like in July.”

Rodney was still just sitting there staring at her. She rolled her eyes again. “I know what you’re thinking, I’m only two months, and I probably shouldn’t be telling people yet, but it’s not like you’re able to come here whenever. And we’re not telling everybody, just family. Of course that includes John and I was going to tell both of you but this is kind of nice with just the two of us.”

Rodney set his empty mug down on the table. The ceramic made a loud clinking sound on the wood.

“Okay,” Jeannie breathed. “I’m ready for it.” She made a ‘come on’ gesture with her hands. “Gimme your best.”

“What?”

“C’mon, Mer,” she said, smiling a little. “You weren’t exactly thrilled when I decided to have one baby, and now I’m having another and I’m sure you’ve got some speech already prepared about me ‘spreading English major genes all over the world’ and ‘wasn’t one kid enough, why not get a dog instead.’” She waved her hand again. “Bring it, I’m ready. I’m in a good a mood, I haven’t puked yet this morning so you get a free pass.” She poked him. “Have at ‘er.”

“That’s really great news, Jeannie. Congratulations.”

Rodney’s voice was soft and low, barely louder than the gurgle of the coffee pot. It was Jeannie’s turn to blink at him.

“Uh, thanks?” she asked, somewhat confused. She frowned. She hadn’t been expecting that. Rodney fiddled with the empty mug for a few more seconds and then stood. Not knowing what to do and feeling a little anxious at Rodney’s reaction, Jeannie stood too.

“Uh, you know, I think I’m gonna take advantage of being on vacation and go back to bed for a couple hours. But, that’s great news, Jeannie. Really great. I’m happy for you,” he stammered. He leaned forward and clumsily wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tight for a few seconds before letting her go and turning away before she could say anything in return.

***

Back in the Miller house after his run, John shucked his shoes and coat, grabbed a cup of coffee from the kitchen (and wasn’t that a bizarre sight - full pot of coffee and no McKays hovering to ingest it before it even finished brewing) and headed upstairs to the guest room. He slipped in quietly and seeing Rodney still in bed, John set the coffee down on the dresser and crept over. In one fell swoop he belly flopped on top of Rodney.

“Huzzah! What? Oh my God your hands are freezing! Don’t put them there! Oh yuck, you smell like wind.” Rodney wiggled underneath him trying to flip John off.

“The wind has no smell, Rodney,” John protested, burying his cold nose against Rodney’s neck.

“Is your nose running? Disgusting. And yes it does have a smell and it smells vile. Like garbage and weeds and moldy things.” Rodney pushed at John’s shoulders in an effort to dislodge him. “What did I say about sweaty Colonels in bed? I said _verboten_!”

John chuckled and rolled off Rodney, settling himself on the bed. “It wasn’t that cold outside, it was a good run.”

“How fantastic for you. You better not be getting your sweaty Colonel hair all over my pillow.”

“Relax, it’s _my_ pillow. Hey,” John said, looping and arm around Rodney. “Wanna come shower with me?” His lascivious waggling eyebrows were lost on Rodney, whose eyes were still closed.

“I’m sleeping.”

“C’mon, I’ll make it worth your while…” John drawled, turning slightly on his side and resting his sharp chin on Rodney’s shoulder.

A ghost of a smile tugged at Rodney’s lips. “I’m sure you would,” he replied, never opening his eyes. “Unfortunately, sleeping physicist here.”

John studied Rodney, who frankly, didn’t turn down sex often. “Something wrong?”

Rodney sighed and John could see the wheels of his brain turning. “No. Just… well, no, but…”

“So, yes then,” John said.

Rodney paused for a moment and then opened his eyes, pulling back from John so he could see him without going cross-eyed from the short distance. “Jeannie’s pregnant.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.” Rodney sighed. “And I just sat there and couldn’t say anything. I mean, I told her congratulations but I just… I should be happy for her. I _am_ happy for her I’m just…” he scrubbed his face with his hand.

“Yeah.” John dropped his forehead on Rodney’s shoulder this time. “Do you wanna tell her?”

Several seconds went by while Rodney thought. “I don’t know.” There were so many thoughts whirring around his brain. Part of him thought, yes. Yes. Tell Jeannie. Because she would get it. She would understand. Another part of him didn’t want to talk about it though, didn’t want to bring up all the details and the memories that would be involved in telling Jeannie the whole story from the beginning. Part of him felt like he never wanted to speak of it again. But then another part of him felt like not talking about it was some kind of disservice to Jamie.

“Maybe,” he hedged and then breathed out. “Yeah. I think so.”

“You want me to be there? We can do it together.”

“Yeah,” said Rodney weakly. “I just… I don’t know how to start.”

John propped himself up on one hand, looking down at Rodney. “Start from the machine. She knows about nanites and ancient technology and the kinds of things we find out there. So, start there and then just… say what you want.”

Rodney gave a little half nod, staring up at the ceiling, eyes open and unblinking. John could see his throat working as he swallowed.

“Yeah,” Rodney said again, this time with even less enthusiasm than before, the last part of the word trailing off at the end into silence.

John was about to add something else when he heard a girlish shriek coming from outside their room, followed by Jeannie’s warning shout before the door to the room was flung open and Madison came tearing in and threw herself on the bed.

“Good morning!” she exclaimed. “It’s aquarium day. You didn’t forget, did you because you promised and I’ve already planned out what order we’re going to see everything.”

Jeannie appeared in the doorway seconds later, breathless. “Sorry,” she said, blushing slightly at seeing her brother in bed with John, despite the fact that everyone was fully dressed and John was above the covers. There were just some things that you never wanted to think about in conjunction with your family. “She got away from me and what did I say about closed doors, Madison?” Jeannie’s tone transitioned from apologetic to lecturing as smooth as silk as she eye-balled her daughter.

“It’s a sign of privacy and you should knock first and wait to be invited in,” Maddie said glumly and then perked back up. “But it’s really important we get there on time or the schedule won’t work.”

Jeannie pursed her lips, making a ‘mm-hmm’ sound and held out her hand. Madison scurried off the bed and took her mother’s hand to be led out of the room.

“But you only got an hour and twenty minutes to get ready,” Maddie called over her shoulder as she was dragged out by Jeannie.

“Lord, how will you ever get ready in such a short amount of time?” Jeannie asked dryly, winking at them as she pulled the door shut behind her. “Maddie!” they heard her yelling, “when a door is closed it _stays closed_ unless it’s-”

“An emergency, I _know_!”

John sputtered out a laugh because he just knew that tone went with a spectacular eye-roll. He’d seen it from Rodney enough times and Madison had the exact same one. It never failed to amuse John.

His laughter trailed off as he remembered thinking during Rodney’s pregnancy that Jamie would’ve had the same expressions as Rodney as well.

“I know,” said Rodney quietly. “Sometimes, with Madison…” Rodney waved his hand.

John nodded solemnly. He shook himself a bit. “Well, we better get going. We’ve only got an hour and a half to get ready.”

“Hour and twenty minutes,” Rodney corrected. “Or the schedule’s shot.”

John slapped Rodney’s thigh and Rodney made a face of mock pain. “Better get a move on then.”

***

In many ways the aquarium, of course, reminded Rodney of Atlantis. Surrounded by water, the gentle sounds of mass amounts of liquid moving around, the blue tones coloring everything. It was cool, dark and soothing.

Madison’s current obsession was marine biology and with the tenacity of a McKay she had voraciously read everything she could get her hands on. She pulled them from one tank to another, from the invertebrates to the vertebrates, to the seaweed and coral exhibits. Rodney sipped his coffee as he watched Madison excitedly explain to John how coral developed, why it was important not to touch it and how it ate. The light from the tank bathed them both in a creamy blue, making them look strange and ethereal. Madison’s high-pitched chatter was easy to pick out and softer were John’s ‘hmms’ and ‘oh reallys.’ Madison was too short to see into one of the dome windows and John easily lifted her up and balanced her on a hip as she pressed her fingers against the glass and tried to find the tiny frogs that were supposed to be inside the exhibit.

Rodney tossed his coffee out, only partially finished, his stomach turning over watching how easy John was with her. It made his throat ache and he blinked several times, grateful for the dim light.

It was shark feeding time when they got to the tank and Madison rushed to the front with all the other kids waiting to see them feast. Rodney took up a spot near the back where he could keep an eye on her. John joined him with a raised eyebrow, a silent inquiry if he was alright and Rodney waved a hand in dismissal. The kids squealed and yipped when the sharks were fed and Madison was particularly taken with the leopard shark, declaring it her favorite of all the sharks ever.

They made their way to the interactive pools set up for the kids and Madison shrieked in delight when she found out she could touch a leopard shark. Despite the lure of other pools situated around the room, she steadfastly remained by the sharks, waiting for a certain one to come by so she could drag her finger across the top of it. Rodney didn’t notice when John ducked out for a few minutes to the gift shop and came back with a stuffed version of the shark which Madison promptly named Monty.

It was late afternoon, almost evening, by the time John, Rodney and Madison started back to the Millers’s. Madison kept up a steady stream from the backseat as Rodney drove, absently petting her stuffed shark as she talked. John half turned in his seat to listen to her, still ‘hmm’-ing and ‘oh really’-ing along as she talked. A couple of times, at red lights, or stop signs, Rodney would glance over and John would catch his eye and he’d smile or wink at Rodney before attentively turning back to Madison to ask a follow up question. When John asked Madison if she’d like to have a shark for a pet, she leveled him with a glare and said, “Don’t be ridiculous, Uncle John. They’d make terrible pets.”

Rodney could see John fighting back his laughter and his eyes slid over to Rodney, ready to share the joke with him. Whatever he saw on Rodney’s face made the smile fade and turn sad.

It started to rain on the drive home.

He pulled into the driveway and they ran for the house, Madison stopping to stomp soundly in a newly formed puddle, soaking herself in the process.

“Maddie!” Jeannie yelled from the doorway, “In the house!”

Madison looked up at Rodney and giggled before tearing up the stairs wildly, instantly starting to fill Jeannie in on their day at the aquarium.

“… and the leopard shark is the bestest shark of all.”

“The best shark, Maddie. There’s no such word as bestest,” said Jeannie as she tugged off Maddie’s rainboots and coat.

Rodney elbowed John in the ribs. “Clearly, having an English major for a dad doesn’t help with speech development,” he said, trying to force his tone to be light but hearing it fall flat.

Jeannie looked up at him with worried eyes. Rodney glanced from her to John and knew they could tell he was faking it. He felt more tired suddenly, aware that he couldn’t even keep up the pretense today. He cleared his throat. “Uh, I think I’ll lie down for a bit before dinner.”

Jeannie nodded. “Sure, it’s still stewing, so about an hour?”

He forced a quick smile to his lips and felt John squeeze his arm once before he headed upstairs.

Some days were better than others, but today wasn’t one of the good ones. Hearing Jeannie’s news, then seeing Maddie with John all day left Rodney feeling raw and worn out. By the time he made it to the guest room, he had just enough energy to get out of his clothes and settle under the covers. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, but even lying down was a relief.

His bad days were getting fewer and farther between, but they still knocked him flat on his back when they happened. He could hear the sounds of John, Jeannie and Madison downstairs; Maddie’s high pitched voice followed at times by Jeannie’s lower pitched, yet still decidedly female tones and the occasionally, the low alto of John’s voice. Maddie’s voice trailed off and he heard the sound of the TV flaring to life and then the overly cheerful opening montage of Maddie’s favorite movie.

He closed his eyes and let the sounds wash over him.

***

John watched Rodney go up the stairs, his eyes staying on the staircase for a few seconds after Rodney disappeared. With a sigh he turned and caught Jeannie staring at him.

“Need help with dinner?” he asked to break the tension.

“Sure,” she said, turning toward the kitchen. Madison continued her montage of the day, surprising John with what she remembered, what she considered important. Jeannie handed John some cucumbers and tomatoes, pointing in the directly of the cutting board and knives, while she took some frozen buns out and set them up on a cookie sheet.

They chatted idly for a few minutes, or more precisely, Maddie chatted until Jeannie suggested that Maddie put in one of her videos and watch it until dinner was ready. Maddie’s eyes widened comically and John held back a laugh. Clearly, this was an unheard of privilege and she scampered off with lightening quick steps.

John helped himself to the fridge and found the rest of the fixings for a salad, working on putting them all in a bowl while Jeannie stirred the stew and set the buns in the oven. When she put her hands on the counter as though she was bracing herself, he knew time had run out.

“John,” she said quietly, not turning around. “What’s wrong with my brother?”

He tossed the salad mindlessly, methodically, staring at the bowl. “What do you mean?”

Jeannie turned and gave him a look that clearly said ‘don’t be obtuse.’ “You know what I mean. He’s… and you’re…” she waved her hands in a McKay like manner. “And if you thought I wouldn’t notice then you’re idiots, the both of you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “Is he sick?”

“No,” John said quickly. “He’s fine. He’s gonna be fine.”

“Going to be?” Jeannie enunciated.

With a sigh, he pushed the salad bowl to the back of the counter and sat down at the small kitchen table. Jeannie looked at him askew before pulling out a chair and taking a seat as well.

“We found this machine,” he began.

He told her about the pod, and how they didn’t know what it did at first. Her brow furrowed and she leaned in slightly with a look of concentration on her face as she listened. He told her about Rodney’s fatigue and sickness and the how it was actually Radek that figured out what the machine did. Jeannie’s hand came up to her throat and she took in a sharp breath of air as John told her about the pregnancy. He smiled a bit as he related how they had been completely freaked out at first but then had decided to have the baby. He talked about the supplies they’d gathered, finding Rodney in their quarters with headphones on his belly, the tiny little hat and booties that Ronon had bought them, Rodney doing yoga with Teyla.

He told her they’d picked a name, Jamie, after Rodney decided he didn’t want to call the baby ‘it’ for weeks on end and Jeannie smiled at their choice.

Then he told her how they lost her. Jeannie’s hand reflexively went to her stomach, as if protecting her own precious passenger. She sighed and breathed, “Oh, Mer.” John explained that they still didn’t really know why it didn’t work out. He talked about how Rodney had been depressed and listless and they’d been like overly polite strangers to each other.

But, things were getting better now, he said. There were more good days than bad and Rodney was coming around the corner.

“And then I told him my news,” Jeannie murmured, her features going sad and worried.

“He’s happy for you. _We’re_ happy for you. It was just… a surprise to him. He’s doing okay.”

“What about you?”

John shrugged. “What about me?” he repeated.

She tilted her head. “Are you doing okay?”

“Sure. Sure I am,” he nodded.

She stared at him, with those pale blue eyes that were so like Rodney’s - knowing and intense, like if they just put enough effort into it, they could read minds.

“John.”

“Look, I wasn’t the one carrying her,” he protested.

“Jamie,” she said quietly.

He swallowed hard and blinked a few times. “Yeah. So, he had to go through all that with the fatigue and the sickness and then the…” he made a motion with his hands that he hoped conveyed the word ‘miscarriage’ because he really didn’t think he could say it again. “And for a while I think he thought it was his fault, but he’s getting past that. It was just… one of those things. But, you know, he had to go through all that and I… I just…” he broke off when his throat suddenly closed around his vocal chords and he couldn’t get another word out. He could feel the tightness squeezing his throat, his chest, a pressure building behind it and he blinked furiously. He dropped his head and rubbed his eyes with one hand trying to breathe. He might have muttered a curse, but he couldn’t be sure he said the word out loud or if he just thought it.

He felt Jeannie’s warm palm settle on his back and if it’d been someone else, he might have flinched. But it wasn’t. She wasn’t team, but she was Jeannie and she was familiar to him, like Rodney in so many ways, yet still her own person. She rubbed large circles with her hand while he shut his eyes tightly and breathed through his mouth, loud and long.

“I’m so sorry, for both of you,” Jeannie whispered. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to his temple and one of his hands snapped out of its own volition and clenched her free one.

She didn’t say anything else and he was grateful for it. For her not saying that it would get better, and they’d get over it, or that maybe it was meant to be. She just kept smoothing her palm over his back in a steady rhythm until his breathing relaxed and he could take a deep one in and let it out smoothly without it hitching and stuttering. He gave her hand a firm squeeze.

“Thanks.”

***

John came upstairs to get him for dinner and Rodney knew something was up immediately from the look on John’s face.

“What?” he asked warily.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“And?”

John shifted from one foot to the other. “I told Jeannie,” John said. “About Jamie.”

Rodney breathed out a sigh of relief. Relief that he wouldn’t have to say the word _miscarriage_ or try to be clinical when he didn’t think he could be.

“She, uh, seemed to know something was up, with you,” John stammered slightly. “And she asked and I… well, I… I just told her.”

“Okay,” Rodney said, sliding out of bed.

“Yeah?” John asked.

Rodney nodded. “Yeah. How did it go?”

John blew out a long breath. “It’s… talking about it is still… It’s not that I don’t _want_ to talk about her,” John started. “It’s just…”

“Yeah,” Rodney said, taking pity on John in that moment.

“Yeah.”

“It’s not like either one of us has a high emotional quotient,” Rodney added.

John gave Rodney a rueful look, placing his hands on his hips. His whole posture screamed, _You think?_. “Well, she knows now.”

Rodney cleared his throat. “So, uh, you said something about dinner?”

John smiled and some of the tension in the room bled out. “Quickest way to you is through your stomach, isn’t it?”

“As long as there’s meat involved.”

***

Jeannie kept watching him through dinner with sad, limpid eyes. Kaleb had a late meeting at the university, so it was just John, Jeannie, Madison and Rodney at the table and with Madison completely oblivious to anything happening at the table that didn’t have to do with her day at the aquarium, there was nothing to keep Jeannie from shooting sympathetic and emotive looks Rodney’s way.

After dinner, in a move Rodney was sure was to guarantee Jeannie and Rodney some alone time, John asked Madison to show him her Polly Pocket mansion and Rodney had never seen anyone move so fast in their life as Madison. John managed to shoot one last, slightly frightened look over his shoulder as Madison led him by the hand out of the kitchen.

“Oh, Mer,” Jeannie said as soon as they were gone.

He’d been working himself up for this all dinner, thinking that when they finally had a chance to talk about it, he’d be okay. He’d tell her that he was doing better, that things were going to be fine.

What came out of his mouth was, “Stupid fucking Ancients.”

He spilled his guts. He told her all about his morning sickness, which she completely sympathized with, as she suffered from it at well. He told her about chipping ice out of the mess hall freezers and she laughed and said that she goes to organic produce stores and sniffs the root vegetables.

He told her about the ultrasound, about seeing Jamie’s face on the screen. About being kind of creeped out at first that there was someone else living in his body. How he wasn’t even sure at first he wanted to have a baby.

He tentatively told her he thought he got it now. How she gave up science, put her career on hold. He’d been ready to stop going through the ‘gate, he gave up caffeine for god’s sake.

She nodded and put her hand over his, squeezing his fingers.

“I don’t know what you went through,” she said when he was finally done. “I can only imagine. But if you ever want to talk more about it, about her, I’m here.”

“Somedays I think… all I can think about is her, what might have been. I wanted to take that machine apart and spend the rest of my life going through its parts and the database figuring out why it didn’t work. And then… then I think…”

“It wouldn't bring her back,” Jeannie finished for him.

His jaw clenched up. “No. No it wouldn’t. I never thought there’d be a time in my life where I wouldn’t see the point in gaining knowledge. When there’d be something that I didn’t know and figuring it out just for the sake of knowledge would be… meaningless.” He paused, struggling for words. “I mean, I still want to know what happened but I… I don’t think it would help.”

The silence that fell between them was the comfortable, easy silence of siblings. From upstairs they could hear Madison, her actual words indistinguishable. Rodney spared a sympathetic thought for John, trapped as he likely was, surrounded by dolls.

Jeannie must have caught his look because she said, “You and John? You seem to be… okay?”

Rodney nodded thoughtfully, carefully. “I… think so. Now. Now we’re doing okay. Before we came to Earth, the last couple of weeks… but I think we’re better now. It’s not as…” he made a stretching out or pulling motion with his hands, turning back to the physics that he knew so well to describe the situation. “It was… fragile isn’t the right word. More like brittle? Like tensile strength being calibrated and we were just about at the highest point of the stress-strain curve.”

“But things are better now?”

“Yeah. This break… I didn’t even know we needed it. When he suggested it I was annoyed. Actually, I was annoyed with him all the time. Annoyed, hurt, pissed off. Finding excuses to not be around him. And… I don’t feel that way now.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus, I sound like a daytime talk show.” He shook his head. “I’m sitting in a kitchen talking to my sister about my _feelings_.

She smiled at him, sympathetic and somewhat knowing. “I won’t tell anyone.” She gave his hand one last squeeze. “Now let’s go rescue John from Madison before the glitter nail polish and feather boas come out.”

***

 _Three Weeks Later_

Rodney’s puddlejumper had docked.

John was still making a conscious effort not to hover, not to ‘mother-hen’ Rodney (as he put it) any longer.

So instead of being present in the docking back, or waiting in the infirmary as he had his post-op physical, or going down to the labs to watch the scientists titter and chatter like teenage girls, practically cooing over their shiny new data, he was waiting patiently in their quarters.

Or maybe patient was the wrong word, he thought as he checked his watch for the ninth time in half an hour. There was no telling how long Rodney would be happily ensconced with his computers and the members of uranography that he and Radek had chosen to go on their data mining mission. It would likely be a while.

He was slouching on the sofa, feet up on the coffee table, trying to slog through another few pages of _War and Peace_.

Really, Rodney had been right. It _was_ boring.

He wondered if he’d always associate that with Rodney laying down on couch with headphones on his belly with music for Jamie.

It didn’t have the sharp, serrated edge of grief anymore. It still hurt, but it was more like a dull ache. A longing tinged with a bone deep sadness that he didn’t think would ever go away, but it wasn’t as cutting as before.

It had been tough to not be part of Rodney’s mission, to delegate it to a team of Marines that needed some seasoning. It was essentially a milk-run science expedition to a part of the Pegasus galaxy where there were no known space-gates, no Wraith activity, no strange readings or ominous data. Just a star cluster in an odd formation that was heretofore unknown.

It was Rodney’s first solo mission since Jamie and John had been nervous as hell. But Rodney had calmly explained that he wanted to do it, he needed to do it and he needed John to let him do it.

They were getting a lot better at communicating. They still fought over John leaving his socks in the bathroom after a busy day and Rodney leaving power bar wrappers stuffed between the couch cushions but things were getting better.

He wasn’t expecting Rodney back for hours so when the doors to their quarters slid open and Rodney came in and stopped, almost hesitantly, John was a little surprised.

“So you’re back,” he said and he wasn’t sure what strange impulse made him add, “from outer space.”

The corner of Rodney’s lips quirked slightly. “I just walked in to find you here with that sad look upon your face.”

John’s lips curled into a smile of their own. “I should have changed my stupid lock, I should have made you leave your key.”

Rodney shrugged, his eyes happy. “If you’d have known for just one second I’d be back to bother…” Rodney paused and frowned. “You?”

John burst out laughing, braying and maybe spraying a bit of spit as he did. Rodney started laughing as well, no _giggling_. Rodney was giggling as he stepped over to the sofa. John dropped his feet from the coffee table with a thud and stood up, still guffawing.

Rodney seemed unsure for an instant. Not long, but long enough for John to notice it. But it didn’t matter because then Rodney was pulling him into a hug, his strong arms solid and warm around John, his body real and sturdy beneath John’s arms.

“It’s good to be home,” Rodney said quietly.

“Yeah. It is.”

 _Fin_

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Three Body Problem Artwork](https://archiveofourown.org/works/251217) by [winter_elf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/winter_elf/pseuds/winter_elf)




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